>>>>>FWIW, my partners name is Tamar. Maybe because her father was half Georgian (where I believe it is common) or maybe because her mother lived near the Tamar (a river on the Devon/Cornwall border)
>>>>
>>>>Probably pronounced differently than I do, though. I'll bet she's "TAY-mahr," since that's how I'm told the river is pronounced. I pronounce it "tuh-MAHR," which is close to, but not quite, the Hebrew pronunciation.
>>>
>>>Your right - usually TaYmar but also TaMmar (as Mike thought). She answers to both (when she's listening :-} )
>>>Actually, most often it's just 'Tam'
>>
>>Which would never work for me, because for me the "m" is definitely part of the second syllable. I've never actually had a shortened version of my name. My parents were very anti-nickname, so none of us were called by them.
>>
>
>Supposedly Dwight Eisenhower's parents named him Dwight David instead of David Dwight because they didn't want anyone calling him Dave.

And, in fact, my father was David, rarely called Dave as an adult. But as a child, often called Davey, which I suspect is part of what formed his views on the subject. He was one of five children, four of them boys, and says that in their small Texas town, where they were one of only two Jewish families, all four boys were often referred to as "Zeke," short for their surname of Ezekiel.

Tamar