Nicknames
 

I've had a nickname for forever, and my family calls me by my nickname and so do some of my friends. At school, I go by my real name. For rush purposes, should I go by my nickname or by my real name?

Whichever one you are most comfortable with and the one most people know you by.

It's up to you.

We had a PNM one year whose legal name was, let's say Anna, but she went by Ann. When she got her Panhel-issued PNM name tag, she took a pen and crossed out the last "a".

These days, recruitment / party invites / bid matching is mostly computerized, so you'll be identified by your PNM number.

You can always introduce yourself by saying, "Hi, I'm Anna, but everyone calls me Ann."

If you go to a competitive school, and your rec writers used your nickname, you'll want to make sure the chapter members realize you're the person associated with those recs.

Whichever you decide, be consistent! If you enroll in recruitment under your real name, put your real name on your name tag, and have alumnae use your real name when they write recs (if your school is one that uses recs). Similarly, if you enroll with your nickname, use your nickname on your name tag.

One year when I was a rush advisor a girl came through whose name did not match up with the official list Panhellenic generated. We asked the Greek Life director, who had to hunt the girl down. Come to find out she had enrolled under her official name, but put her nickname on her name tag. All the sororities were confused and until it was resolved, it caused everyone a lot of aggravation.

This!

I vote to go with your real name a you will want all of your documents to match. So, if your transcripts have your real name and the university has your real name, use your real name on the recruitment form. Some universities provide a list to Panhellenic and, if your nickname and real name are not similar enough to be obvious (for example, "Jenny" vs "Jennifer" would be obvious), then the chapters may have a problem keeping track of you. You want them to keep track of you, right? :)

Like someone else just suggested, at the parties, you can always say something like "My name is Anastasia, but I like to go by 'Stacy'" (random name example).

When I was a rho chi (yes, I was a rho chi, not a sigma rho chi or a rho gamma or whatever they're calling them these days :p ), we had two particular girls come through rush. They were both Asian. It's not uncommon for Asians who come to the USA to choose a more American name to go by. So we had a PNM named, let's say Fang-hua Chen (I guess that would really be Chen Fang-hua, but I digress). She was registered for rush as Fang-hua Chen, but she went by Frances Chen. Trouble is, there was also a PNM whose legal name was Frances Chen. Well, Fang-hua loved sorority XYZ, made a good impression, and, according to XYZ's president, should have been invited back ... except the sorority confused her with Frances Chen, who was not being invited back, so Fang-hua opened her invite list and didn't see XYZ on it. Fortunately, XYZ sorted out the situation. Lucky me - I was Fang-hua's rho chi and I got to explain the situation. :/ Anyway, Fang-hua ended up going to XYZ's pref and joining them.

So, yes ... that's my long-winded way of saying that consistency is key. "Hi, I'm Fang-hua, but I prefer to go by Frances."

(Names have been changed to protect the innocent. ;) )

Great example!