Did you ever have a nickname? Did you ever want one?
I’m betting the answer is yes to at least one of those questions, although most people never have a nickname that sticks and is used more or less by everybody they know. For the sake of the discussion here I’m not talking about diminutive forms of your actual given name like Rosie for Rosemary or Dick for Richard. (Now, there’s a discussion we need to have some day.)
No, I’m talking about nicknames that have absolutely nothing to do with anything.
People with… shall we say unusual first names often have a nickname like Bud. I don’t think any little boy was ever called Bud or Buddy on his birth certificate but the world is full of guys called Bud. When you get to know them better you learn the truth. These guys typically have real names so weird even their own parents wouldn’t use them. I have two friends everybody calls Bud though their given names are Harley and Clerin. No disrespect intended but those are odd names. My own father dodged a bullet because his middle name, like John Wayne’s real first name, was Marion. It was apparently a fashionable name in the 1920s but please, who is going to name his son Marion these days without also teaching him martial arts so he can defend himself?
Girls typically acquire nicknames that begin as simple endearments: Kitty, Angel, Candy, Missy, Boots, Peaches.
Seriously, one of my dearest friends in the world is a woman named Ruth but almost nobody knows that. She is called Boots by everybody. And even though I have asked her why I can’t remember her answer. She’s just Boots, that’s all.
I also really knew an adult woman called Peaches though I never heard of anybody called Plums or Apricots. Academy Award-winning Actress Gwyneth Paltrow has a daughter whose legal given name is Apple but that’s a Hollywood affectation that we can shrug off even if the poor little girl never will.
Don’t get me started on what became of Chastity Bono. We all saw that coming forty years ago.
I had a high school baseball coach who called me Ted. That was because I was a left-handed power hitting outfielder like the real Ted whose last name was also Williams. I thought that was cool but nobody else used it. No surprise there. You can’t use a real name for a nickname. If your name is Mark but one guy calls you Ralph you think everybody else will pick up on that? Nah. I don’t think so.
For the past twenty years I’ve gone on regular camping trips with a bunch of guys I used to work with. One of them started calling me Hoss ten or fifteen years ago because I am large and have a beard and always wear a cowboy hat. It seemed kind of fitting and I’m fond of it but only from these guys. I don’t want my son’s in-laws or my wife or my mom calling me Hoss.
I guess no matter how you look at it a nickname is a term of endearment even if the name is something less than flattering like Shorty or Bug. My wife and her first husband used to call their premie son Bug because he weighed only four pounds when he was born. He lives with us now. He’s about to turn thirty and looks nothing at all like a bug. I’ll just leave it at that.
Nicknames are interesting. What’s yours? Or what would you like to be called?
© 2010 by David L. Williams, all rights reserved
Over many years, I have been given numerous nicknames, some of which are more endearing than others. I would just as soon forget a couple of uncomplimentary nicknames assigned to me in junior high. But over time, two names of affectionate derivation, unrelated to my given name or surname, have stuck. People in two of my circles of friends call me either “Herbie” or “Radar.” One former boss insistently called me “Jefferson,” even though that is not my proper name, and several friends call me “Jefe” (Spanish, pronounced HEF-fay). Oh, yes, in high school Spanish classes I was “Ramon” (Spanish for “Raymond,” my Dad’s name), because Spanish has no equivalent for “Jeff.”
My mother named me Vietta, after a friend of hers, who moved away when I was an infant, so I never knew her. Because my older sister had been named Violet, my Daddy refused to use my name. He said we would both be called “Vi.” To begin with, the name was misspelled and typed on my birth certificate, as Vietti. When my mother told them it was spelled wrong, but should have a “a” at the end, someone just took an ink pen and added an “a”, not instead of the “i”, but after it. Thus, no matter the spelling, my name is pronounced with a long “i” and a silent “i”, as vie etta.
But I digress – the theme is nickname. Because my father did not want two daughters to be called VI, he called me “Babe.” I never heard my real name until I was in the first grade. The teacher called the name, and I did not respond until the real Vi gave me a kick.
I was still called Babe at home for several years, and a beloved sister-in-law called me Babe. My husband used at as an endearment for nearly 30 years.
Now, approaching my 75th birthday, the nickname has not “fit” in years, but I sometimes wonder what my family will call me if and when I join them in Heaven. I have lived so long, they may not even recognize me.
Nicknames are great, and certainly an endearment. Thanks, HOSS !!
You tell us all the names you’ve had throughout your life but log in as Anonymous! LOL.
Great stories, Babe.
Wait…I mean Aunt Babe.
My dad called me Trishie and my little brother pronounced it Deedee, which I spelled DiDi. I am 67 years old and am still DiDi to all family and most friends, but not professionally. I really appreciated my nickname when I first learned that my now-husband’s first wife’s name is Patricia. Good blog, Dave. As ever, DiDi
My oldest grandson called me “Bompah” before he could say Grandpa. The youngest called me “Keepah” and as much as I loved those names I couldn’t get either of them to stay with them. They both say “Grandpa” very clearly now.
I’ll add another nickname that some of your radio buddies call you – D. Dub – short for D.W. short for Dave Williams. I’ve always been fond of “D. Dub.” The nickname and the guy too.
I sometimes call my son, Tyler, “booger” for no reason other than I think it to be a funny word and, I hasten to add, it has no references or allusions to any longstanding nasal protuberences. I was called J.T. by my parents because it is the obvious abbreviation for Jeremy Todd, my first and secondary names. Apart from that no nicknames have stuck. And despite my son’s recent foray into his sixth year of life and my continued use of it, I hope, for his sake, “booger” doesn’t stick.
I have had a few of nicknames in my life also. One I HATE. I got it when I was about 2 or so. Here it is SMELLY MELLY.
I HATE IT. Does it still get used, of course. I was always smelling things so they put the Smelly in front of a kind of abbriviation of my name.
The next one that didnt stick and wish it would have is: Dooie Dooie (Do-e) which ment Daddy’s little girl. I would have loved this name BUT NO they had to stick with Smelly Melly. Did I mention that I HATE it. Lol.
My next one is Maymo and I like this one and all the kids (well now adult kids) call me this. My friends son couldnt say my name so he called me Maymo my husband Teetoe and his Aunt Weewo. Mine is the only one that stuck. So I have had this one for 20 years.
Babe said that nicknames are an endearment. What is endearing about Smelly Melly?
My grandaughter called her Great Grandpa Ha-pa for the longest time but like Daves grandsons she learned to say grandpa.
Sorry for the Anonymous but I really dont want to be know as Smelly Melly and I know of some that if they knew who I was that would be what I was called from now untill I died. LOL.
I have had so many nicknames it would be hard to count. But the one I remember as odd was George. A dear neighbor and friend of mine had a family friend that nick named every girl with a boys name. I was George. The common, Shorty, Squirt, Shrimp, Half Pint, were all applied since I was so small. I didn’t mind Squirt so much probably because Squirt came from my Bosom Buddy Clay Flower, but Shorty and Shrimp I hated.
And FYI Bug came from “Doodle Bug” which I just thought was cute. It evolved into Bug until he insisted we stopped calling him that in about 2nd grade. I still think of him as my “Little Doodle Bug” even if he towers over me and I can’t say it allowed.
Wel it’s been fun reading peoples response on this.actualy stumbled into dz page cos i’m about writting my first degree project in psychology on “the influence of nickname on aging”.i bet i’m going 2 hv a swell time wt my supervisors.my nckname is “osuofia” one who clears d path pronounce “osophia” bt 4 me t means a pace setter wch is who i am.