Our baby is so special that we've named him so many times.

People find our son's name stressful. Or rather, it's his lack of a consistent name that makes people, well, I guess uncomfortable. I'll start by saying that no matter which name you call him, we won't be offended. His legal name is . Hyphenation wasn't really our favourite choice for a last name, but it seemed the most fair and it sounds pretty cool. Elray is a combination of our fathers' first names: Raymond and Elmer. We like this name very much and if you want to call him , go ahead. We know who you are talking about because often we call him too. I probably call him Augusten most of the time. Augusten is pronounced Au-GUS-ten with the emphasis on the middle syllable. People often pronounce it AU-gus-ten. We really don't mind that either. It's sounds European. and Europe is cool. We especially liked the name because it could be shortened to Gus. Gus is just too diminutive to be a legal name so we expanded it to Augusten. But you can call him Gus and we like it too. Augie is cute. It is an unanticipated short form of Augusten. We like this name also.
I've had friends comment that Augusten will be confused because he doesn't really have a consistent name. We also call him: "the Dude", buddy, poopy-pants, monkey-pants, Mr. Baby, sweety etc. I think most people call their babies affectionate terms. So think of him as having many affectionate terms, and one of them might be his actual name that sticks.
I often say that I will let him choose when he is old enough (sometime before he goes to school). I imagine he'll want to called 'fire engine' or monkey-pants.
We like all of these names which is precisely why we haven't been able to stick with just one. My guess is that one will start to be used more than the others. I'm guessing either Gus or . In the meantime, call him what you wish and we'll know exactly who you are talking about. Eventually, he'll know exactly who you are talking about too.