Back in high school, my close male friends called me “Mama McKay.” It started out as a way to poke fun at my tendency to make sure everyone was taken care of and for being the guy who’d say “Fellas, maybe we shouldn’t be doing this,” whenever we were about to take part in some potentially dangerous or criminal teenage hijinks. The nickname rubbed me the wrong way at first, but I soon accepted it and even became a little proud of it.
We had nicknames for other guys in the group as well. We called one guy “Crip” because when he first started hanging out with us, he had a foot in a cast and was on crutches. For a long time, we didn’t even know his real name. It was just Crip. There were other nicknames that were designed to infantilize and emasculate. When we found out that “Drew Bear” was the pet name my best friend Andrew’s mom had for him, we started calling him that first as a joke, and the name stuck. Another guy was “Indian Princess.” I don’t even remember how that one was coined.
On the football team, especially among the linemen, nicknames abounded. We called one big guy “Happy Fat” because he was, well, happy and fat. Another guy we called “Squints” because his cheeks were so fat it looked like he was squinting all the time. Then there was “Donuts.” He liked donuts. A lot.
An unspoken rule about all these mocking monikers us guys had for each other was that only guys in the “gang,” could call each other by their respective nicknames. If an outsider tried to use the name, they’d be given the cold shoulder or simply told outright to “Shut the hell up.”
While this very distinctly male ritual might seem sort of silly and superficial, the practice of nicknaming has been studied by anthropologists and sociologists, and can in fact offer some fascinating insights into manliness and the bonds between men.
What Are Nicknames?
The word nickname comes from the Middle English “eke name,” or extra name. Nicknames are names that are substituted for a given name but have not been legalized. While using someone’s given name and title shows deference and respect, using their nickname is an informal form of address.
In small communities, derisive nicknames are often used to refer to people behind their backs, and the nicknamed individual may not even know about the epithet. Other nicknames are used to refer to or address someone directly. These fall into several categories:
Referential nickname. These are nicknames bestowed on public figures, and are often used to refer to politicians and sports figures. For example Andrew Jackson was known as “Old Hickory” and Winston Churchill was called “The British Bulldog.” And of course in times past evocative nicknames for athletes abounded: Lou “The Iron Horse” Gehrig, Harold “The Galloping Ghost” Grange, Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Karl “The Mailman” Malone, William “The Refrigerator” Perry, and so on. Boxers have always been some of the most nicknamed athletes — pugilist John L. Sullivan (who graces the AoM masthead) had half a dozen monikers or more, including “The Prizefighting Caesar,” “The Hercules of the Ring,” “The Boston Strongboy,” and my favorite, “His Fistic Highness.”
Sports nicknames linger on today, but have been in decline since their golden age in the 1920s, when childhood nicknames were more common, and colorful journalists sought to punch up their writing by christening athletes who had made it to adulthood without one. Today’s athletes lack the intimacy and accessibility that allowed nicknames to thrive, and because all nicknames are bestowed by others and thus lie outside the control of the named, modern athletes often eschew them in favor of stricter management of their “personal brand.”
As the name implies, these nicknames are used to refer to someone — not to address them directly. You wouldn’t have gone up to Mr. Gehrig and said, “Hey Iron Horse, how’s it going?”
Private nickname. Also known as a love-name, or pet-name, these names are typically used between lovers only when they are alone (or by couples who are impervious to the eye-rolls of their friends). Think “Sweetie Pie” or “Honey Buns.” Private nicknames give couples a sense of intimacy, as they are names known and used only by each other, which helps create a little pocket and hedge against the outside world.
Public nickname. A public nickname is one that is often given to a person in his childhood by family or friends, and which he carries with him everywhere he goes — it has a achieved a near permanent status. The person may introduce themselves to new people with the nickname, and friends and associates may not even know the person’s real name. For example, Kate’s uncle’s real name is James, but as a kid his brother started calling him “Fuzz,” because his neck hair grew back so quickly after haircuts. His dad worked with a not-so-bright guy who morphed Fuzz into “Buzz.” Friends and family found that so funny they all started using it. Today, he’s Buzz to pretty much everybody and introduces himself that way.
Public nicknames differ from diminutives, which represent variations on one’s given name: Bobby=Robert, Smith=Smitty. True nicknames are complete departures from the root of one’s real name.
Generic. These are less personal, off-the-cuff nicknames that are given to those who fit certain categories. “Doc” for a doctor, “Shorty” for a vertically-challenged individual, “Paddy” for an Irishman, and so on.
Group nicknames. At last we come to the type of nickname that we will be focusing on today. These nicknames are bestowed on members of a group by each other, and only used within the group. It’s the difference between Winston Churchill being called “The British Bulldog” by the public, and his being known as “Copperknob” (for his red hair) among his childhood chums at the all-boys Harrow School.
Group nicknames are an almost exclusively masculine domain, and their purpose and function among men will now be explored.
The Purpose and Function of Nicknames Within All-Male Groups
At their core, group nicknames are boundary-defining and boundary-maintaining mechanisms that draw a line both between who is in a group of men and who is out, and between that group and the outside world.
How Nicknames Set a Group and Its Members Apart
Group nicknames thrive within small, insular tribes, gangs, and teams of men who experience regular face-to-face contact, and especially among those male groups which share in a common purpose and set of risks, and together must tackle difficult challenges. Think of military units, criminal organizations like the Mafia, motorcycle gangs, football teams, pioneering and adventure expeditions, and men whose employment isolates them from the outside world (miners, loggers, etc.).
Men have a desire to feel that our group is tighter and better than other groups in the same category. And so the cohesiveness of these kinds of male groups is driven by an “us versus them” mentality — we band of brothers against the outside world. Part of what creates this distinct sense of “us” is the use of names known only to each other. Nicknames create a special language that outsiders aren’t privy to (in addition to nicknaming other group members, men, especially in the military, come up with their own names for their equipment, living quarters, and so on). Even if an outsider knows what a group member’s nickname is, he also knows he dare not use it to address him without causing offense – that privilege is reserved for his comrades.
Nicknames not only set a group apart from the outside world by creating a special language, they also foster a distinct identity for the group and its members. In religious rituals in which an initiate is inducted into a priesthood or order, they are often given a new name to signify their new life and the new behaviors that will be expected of them. In receiving a new name, you become part of a new “family.” In the same way, a nickname helps you shed the expectations tied to your given name for a time, and settle into your role in the group. For example, Army Lt. Mike Smith may be a gentle, happy husband and father of three when he’s home in Ohio, but when he’s stationed at a remote outpost in Afghanistan, he’s a different guy, with a different name, a different family, and a different code.
How Nicknames Indicate a Man’s Status and Inclusion in a Group
While nicknames separate a group from the outside world, they also demarcate the status of an individual man within that group — whether he is an accepted, respected, and integrated member of the group, or sits on the periphery.
The interesting thing about nicknames is that while derisive nicknames used behind someone’s back are utilized to shame someone in a community and designate them as an outsider, mocking nicknames (and in most male groups, nicknames are) are given to members of all male-groups to mark them as an insider. What explains this seeming paradox?
Nicknames are usually first given to guys who are sitting on the “bubble” of the group. The other members aren’t quite sure about him, and throwing out the nickname is a way of feeling the guy out. If he demonstrates he can good-naturedly accept an insulting nickname from his fellow members, he proves that he trusts them — that he knows there is no malice behind a moniker that in another context would be considered a putdown. So while a nickname often starts as a form of ribbing, if the member is able to take it, he will become more integrated into the group. In a way, it’s a form of hazing. Thus nicknames in male groups, despite looking like insults to outsiders, are actually honorific titles showing that a man has been accepted by the others.
Conversely, a man who will not accept his nickname — “My name is Ralph! Don’t call me Dumbo!” — shows that he does not trust his brothers and thus cannot be fully integrated into the group.
How Nicknames Test and Solidify the Bonds Between Men
Once nicknames have been established, they serve to test and reinforce the bonds between the men in a group.
You yourself may have used, or seen other men use, seemingly derogatory language in greeting a friend. “Hey bastard!” “What’s up fat ass?” What may seem to others to be a puzzling ritual and paradoxical way to demonstrate one’s friendship, can actually be a way for men to show — and to test — the solidity of their bond. A man will use an insulting greeting when he feels confident enough in the relationship to know he will not offend. At the same time, if the greeting does evoke a negative response — perhaps one friend has been nursing a grudge unbeknownst to the other — it will bring this rift to the surface. “Hey bastard!” “Who you calling a bastard, you asshole?” As Diego Gambetta, author of Code of the Underworld, puts it, when the interaction does engender “a negative response, this brings a switch from innocent banter to strategic interaction.” This “insulting” greeting can serve to ferret out and then deal with ill-feelings.
In the same way, each time a man answers to his group nickname without umbrage, it indicates that the ties between the men remain solid – it’s a constant sonar test, sounding the depth of those bonds. In groups that face risk and challenge together, trust and loyalty are paramount, and nicknames help men to know they have placed their trust and loyalty well.
Now that you understand the function of nicknames within a male group, it becomes possible to finally see the underlying rationale behind the prohibition against giving yourself a nickname, and why we find others’ attempts to do so ridiculous and funny — nicknames must be bestowed upon you by your male peers. Inventing a nickname for yourself is read as an attempt at gaining a privilege without earning it first — something a low status man like George Costanza would do.
The Genesis of Nicknames in Male Groups
Nicknames, which contrast with formal, deferential modes of address, demonstrate the equality of members of a group, and any fully fledged member of a group may bestow a nickname on another. The ability to coin a good, clever nickname can in turn give a member more status and popularity.
What makes a good nickname? A nickname that will stick manages to distill down a story or a defining personal trait into one or two words. Bernard Rosenberg, who studied criminal gangs, noted how gang members would “size each other up, and then, put their findings in pithy nicknames–names which explain the man in a word–his weakness, his racket, how he works, or some peculiarity about him.” Anthropologist Anthony P. Cohen argues that, “The hallmark of the apt nickname is that deft touch of nuance, mocking humour, pungent wit, and droll equivocality.” Meeting these requirements and coming up with a good nickname isn’t easy, which is why the man who does so gets kudos from the others.
As discussed above, many male nicknames are mocking in nature, and the largest percentage of them are rooted in a man’s physical characteristics — particularly of the unflattering variety. As Russian philosopher and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin noted, “Wherever men laugh and curse, particularly in a familiar environment, their speech is filled with bodily images. The body copulates, defecates, overeats, and men’s speech is flooded with genitals, bellies, defecations, urine, disease, noses, mouths and dismembered parts.”
The popularity of body-part nicknames in groups of men speaks to another one of their purposes: tension-reducer. Especially important for tight-knit groups under stress. Nicknames evoke laughter because of their contrast with more formal modes of address, their common use of phonemic repetition (“Mama McKay”), and, because body parts can be pretty funny.
Insulting nicknames based on a man’s physical qualities also serve to emphasize the distinct maleness of the group — one cannot imagine female friends calling a big-nosed girl in the group “Birdie” or an overweight one “Chubs,” without causing deep offense and hurt feelings.
But unflattering physical attributes are not the only fodder for nicknames — they can come from a variety of sources of inspiration. And it is possible to earn that most desirable of male nicknames – a descriptive one based on one’s exemplary skills. Examples of nicknames culled by Diego Gambetta from the court records of Italian Mafioso offer an interesting look at the different categories into which male nicknames can fall:
Physical Nicknames
- u’Beddu (Handsome)
- Il Gosso (Fat)
- Tignusu (Hairless)
- Turchiceddu (Little Turk – the man in question had a dark complexion)
- Faccia di Pala (Shovel Face – “because of the wide shape of his face”)
- Pietro u’Zappuni (“two horsey front teeth”)
- Il Vampiro (the man in question was tall, thin, and spooky)
- Mussu di Ficurindia (Prickly Pear Mouth)
Descriptive Nicknames
- L’Ingegnere (Engineer — “He was in charge of fixing radios used by smugglers at sea”)
- Il Senatore. (Senator –This man did not hold office himself, but “was involved with politicians, he could rely on all sorts of favors”)
- U’Tratturi (Tractor—This man was skilled “in murdering people. He flattened everything and wherever he went the grass stopped growing”)
Titled Nicknames
- Reella Lalsa (King of Kalsa)
- Generale (General)
- Principe di Villagrazia (Prince of Villagrazia)
Behavioral Nicknames
- u’Tranquillu (Quiet)
- u’Guappo (Braggart)
- u’Cori Granni (Big heart)
- Farfagnedda (Stammer)
- Pupo (Dapper)
- Cacciatore (Hunter)
- Studenete (“because he went to university, but never graduated”)
- u’Masculiddu (Little Male)
Animal Nicknames
- Il Cane (Dog)
- Cavadduzza (Little Horse)
- Conigghiu (Rabbit)
- Farfalla (Butterfly)
Objects Nicknames
- Alfio Lupara (Sawed-off Shotgun)
- Pinnaredda (Little Father)
- Putina (Little Nail)
Some men were even named for vegetables:
- Milinciana (Eggplant)
- Cipudda (Onion)
It wasn’t just underlings who had derogatory nicknames either — mob bosses had them too:
- Ninu u’Babbu (Nino the Fool)
- Fifu Tistuni (Thick Head)
- Piddu Chiacchiera (Joe Baloney – know for exaggerating events)
- Il Corto (The Short)
According to Gambetta’s research, within the Mafia, hit men are the most likely to have a nickname — most likely because of yet another purpose of nicknames , at least in criminal organizations — keeping one’s identity secret.
Why Has the Use of Nicknames Declined?
Sociologists say that the use of nicknames of all kinds has declined over the last few decades. Why is this?
One final, very practical purpose of nicknames – of both the group and other varieties – is simply to distinguish one person from another when many individuals in a community have the same name. So, for example, they used to thrive in small villages in the Mediterranean, where surnames were few, and the tradition was to name a firstborn child after his or her parents or grandparents, or for the local Catholic patron saints. The result was a lot of people with the same names, and nicknames helped folks keep track of who was who.
These days, the diversity in names is on the upswing. As The New York Times reported:
“According to the Social Security Administration, the 10 most popular baby names for boys in 1956 represented 31.1 percent of the total born. In 1986, around the time many of today’s athletes were born, the top 10 represented only 21.3 percent of the total. In 2010, the number dropped to 8.4 percent.”
With so much variation, nicknames just aren’t as needed anymore.
Another reason for the general decline in nicknames may be found in a culture that takes offense to things more easily than it used to. As psychology professor Cleveland Evans put it, nicknames are “humorous or non-complimentary, and we may live in a culture where people are less willing to accept names that are less complimentary.”
When it comes to all-male groups, the decline in nicknames can simply be traced to the decline in the existence of these kinds of groups at all. As we mentioned above, nicknames thrive in small, insular groups that offer plenty of face-to-face contact. As a group interacts less, gets bigger, and becomes penetrated by outside forces and people, nicknames disappear.
The way in which this plays out can be seen by contrasting two organized crime syndicates: the Italian Mafia and the Russian Vory. In the Mafia, the organization is tighter and based on long-standing kinship and community ties, and its members’ nicknames are left to emerge naturally. The Vory, on the other hand, are a much looser and fragmented organization which originates not from bloodlines but in prison, and is made up of members of different nationalities and ethnicities. So it is interesting to note that Vory choose their own nickname when they are initiated into the group, instead of having them assigned by others.
The way in which the breakdown of the male group leads to the disappearance of nicknames can be seen in sports as well. In addition to the reasons for the decline of athlete nicknames mentioned above, it can also be traced to a breakdown in the bonds among players (who, besides reporters, were the ones who used to mint monikers for each other). Players don’t typically stay with one team and with a single set of teammates for very long anymore, and when they are with a team, they spend less time socializing with their teammates. As NBA Hall of Famer Walt “Clyde” Frazier put it:
“With the communication age, everybody’s on the computer, the cellphones, there’s not a lot of communication. When we traveled, there were only three channels, and all during the day, there was nothing but soaps on,” Frazier added. “So the guys spent a lot of time together, playing cards, talking, hanging around in the same places, traveling together on the bus or whatever it might be. There was a lot of camaraderie among the players.”
As it is on the hardwood, so it is in life. As tight-knit groups of men becomes more scarce, nicknames disappear too. All of which is to say, it’s harder than ever to become a T-Bone these days…or even a Koko.
Do you have a nickname that only your buds call you? Share it and the story behind it with us in the comments.
Postscript: If you enjoyed this topic, which relates to the broader topic of honor among men, then stay tuned as next week we will begin a series on the subject of honor itself.
____________________
Sources:
Code of the Underworld by Diego Gambetta
Dictionary of Epithets and Terms of Address by Leslie Dunkling
Belonging: Identity and Social Organisation in British Rural Cultures by Anthony P. Cohen
“Nicknames as Symbolic Inversions” in Honour and Violence by Anton Blok
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I have many nicknames being part of an Ultimate Frisbee team at my college. Avatar, Banana Hands, Vampire to name a few. Most of them come from my large hands and tall stature though I don’t quite remember how Vampire came about. Other members on the team included Little Bear, Boyband, Girly Drinks, Ron Burgundy, and Champ. College Ultimate is awesome.
Beady. When I was younger I wore very thick glasses which apparenty made my eyes appear smaller. One day my friend’s older brother noticed I was absent from the group and asked “Where’s the kid with the beady eyes?”
I was sensitive (still am), painfully shy, and somewhat socially inept as a kid, and I didn’t understand the way that men teased like that. Took me a long time to figure it out, and so I had a long, long list of nicknames, some which aren’t repeatable in polite company.
None honestly lasted. Working women that I come across might suggest a nickname or two, but that’s about it. However, my father did give one to my son that should stick a while: “Cement Head”, as he’s autistic and sometimes headbutts instead of communicating, usually when he’s frustrated. I tell people if my son does that to me, he gets a reminder that I have a hard head, too.
He and my daughter have other nicknames, but they function mostly as codenames when my wife and I refer to them on the Internet, to protect their privacy as minors.
when i worked at a summer camp when i was 15 they called me “Pappy.” I am really not sure why. One of the other counselors just started it. They didn’t call me that the following 5 years.
i was called fuffums for most of my middle school years…im not entirey sure how the nickname came up to honest
but it was replaced by supersac or the sacman
becasue my name is isaac
and cause of my testicular fortitude
in the group im the maniest by their standards
ive my father to thank for most of that the art of manliness and a though life to thank for the rest
i must admit this is a crummy way to describe manliness. hazing has NO place in society. kids get killed with it. bruised. i doubt no one would like a nickname when they were a kid. its a form of cruelty and disowning their identity from what they were given. using a name like that to discipline is a tough line too. describing someone may be helpful when it has to be. but as a moniker like described here, you very much miss the mark. and YES, i am very manly. and NO, i dont have a nickname.
I got a nickname from my IB teacher in highschool. It was Lobster, or sometimes Troglobster, because T stood for Tyler and rog for the first three letters in ROGers, and as we know a trog is a troglodyte, or a cave-dweller.
The story behind the name came from when a few of my fellow IB friends (the IB program being a group of about 19 students who take intensive classes together as a group at a public high-school, so it was fairly tight-knit) had to stay after school to do a make-up Socratic seminar. We were talking about semantics, and I had brought up an example where the word ‘lobster’ could mean either the tasty crustacean we are familiar with or an otter in some English dialects, which completely threw my teacher and classmates off-track into hysterical laughter (we were all sleep deprived).
I had always been known to make obscure observations and unconventional comments in a lot of our classes, so the nickname was most like a homage to that odd trait with the most novel example.
So the next day in class my teacher officially dubbed me with that nickname, and ever since then anyone in my IB program has called me lobster.
Slow it down, Little Jimmy – you’re earning one right now.
I was called hollywood in little league because i wore sunglasses during the game
Dude, Jim, with an attitude like that, you’re a prime target for a nickname. I definitely would give you one. I got plenty of nicknames, and a few stuck. Many know me as Mattress, Meyatt, Maltomeal, Skinny, and Bighead. Yeah they may have sucked at first, but if you can’t get past that and understand (as the article points out) that moving past the degradation side to the seeing the respect side as you hang with those guys, you need to grow up. Yeah there’s a time and a place and yes, also a limit, but ruffled feelings build character and tighten bonds.
As a take away from this article, I think we need more nicknames, but instead of just forcing them into relationships, we need to man up, get away from screens, and do something important and difficult with our brothers to cultivate those bonds.
Jim- Your new nickname is Madeline.
A lot of my nicknames stemmed from my last name, Schopen (pronounced SHOW-pen). I kept getting confused with another guy named Ryan, so my last name became my nickname. There was just Schopen, and also:
Schope
Schopenhagen
The Schopenator
Schope-on-a-Rope
Schope-Balls (I don’t know how that came around.
It got to the point where my coaches and teachers started calling me by my nickname. Now, I see it as a term or endearment, that you know me well enough and I know you well enough to respond to it.
i was paddy in high school it seems to be a diminutive but it came about because i was irish. i didnt much like it at first and now its one of thoes things that makes home feel like home. i always introduced myself as patrick because it seemed that not only does a man have to earn his nickname but everyone he meets has to earn the right to call him by it if they do it wasnt until somebody felt close enough to the group that they felt confortable to call us bu nicknames. there was also a friend whos father we called fuzums (just not to his face)
My surname is Williams, so there’s a few options with that; however I was always fairly shy and introverted so generally I didn’t have a large enough group of friends to easily generate many nicknames for me.
For a while in high school I had one kid come up with “Wildo the dildo”. As evidenced by the relish with which he used this name, he clearly thought it was the funniest thing ever conceived in the annals of human history.
I like Brian’s “Schope-on-a-Rope” – that’s champagne stuff!
great read, glad to hear your thoughts on nick names. we had chris/fat pauly (fat), james/the jew (frugal), joe/mike (loud mouth), and mike/micky (mike was taken). after reading this i realize these would seem offensive but they were just as normal as our real names growing up.
In high school I was “Sunshine” because I dyed my hair bleach blonde. Yeah, I thought it was a good idea until the next morning when my buddies practically died laughing. To this day I will hear it from an old class mate that I haven’t seen in a while.
In the Police Academy I earned “BigBaby” because Im a tall and larger built guy thats bald. Also earned “Hollywood” because I wore sunglasses on my first day at the range.
I have a childhood nickname from my old neighbourhood. Actually spent years trying to get my friends and family to stop but finally just gave in. Luckily less than ten people still use it.
Funny story. My friend’s daddy said that he only uses Viagra when he wants to ‘punish’ a woman, at 65 and looking like 85, dealing with him should be punishment enough, in my opinion. His new nickname, created by me,”The Punisher”.
Thanks for the info. I’d never thought of this but now I know why so many criminals have nicknames.
My nick name is “the Gunshow”
My name being Gunter.
I quite like it
Jim does have a point, nicknames can be derogatory and devoid of any form of underlying respect. But the article focuses on nicknames between friends rather than nicknames between enemies. He has a good point, but he may have missed the point.
My nicknames include:
Mario
Mar-yoose
Box Brother/Master
Master (a name for a few of us)
Moonshine
Momo
Tequila
Jim>Jim-Bo>Jim Bowie>Alamo.
Hey Alamo, there’s a difference between hazing and HAZING. One builds ingenuity, resourcefulness, character, and bonds of trust between men. HAZING is pointless, abusive and degrading without purpose. Our PC society has unfortunately lumped these 2 together. My friends call me “Chief”, I can get a sun tan easily and then I look like an Indian.
There always seems to be somebody getting insulted by our nIcknames, and it was never one of us, but this was back when I lined in Seattle and I swear that city has mandatory PC sensitivity training in grade school.
Drizzle. In high school my older brother was a storm chaser who earned the nickname “Storm.” When I started to integrate into his group of friends, they decided I needed to have a nickname that denoted I was his little brother–a little storm. Drizzle was born.
Others arose from the same group. One day at a college baseball game I got two of the thrown prizes and two foul balls, one of them while chasing it down with one of my buddies. He started calling me “Noah”, since things were coming to me in pairs–two by two.
My favorite is related to one of your points. One of the guys on the border of the group had only been introduced to me as Drizzle. One night (while I was absent), he started asking the group what my name is. Everyone else in the group said “Steve” for most of the night before someone finally gave up the goods. I still get that every so often as well.
I have lots of names from different people in different people. My father for example calls me longshanks because I’m tall and Duracell because I’m a red head who doesn’t shut up. Amongst my friends I am MrT or tetters. MrT for one rather memorable day after Christmas when I came into school in an a team T shirt and for some reason I still can’t comprehend a large number of pendants and wristbands. My favourite is tetters which was my best friends name for me, after he died it became his families name for me and its just stuck and is me
Superb article; lots of insight.
My nickname is, and has for ages been, “The Bishop”. I’m tall, thin and like my driving seat quite upright in the car, so years ago one of my friends remarked that it made me look dignified, like a Lord, an Earl, or – a Bishop. And it stuck.
Nicknames may be on the decline in some areas but they are very much alive in my workplace and within the northern subculture where I live, particularly among the young with their factions and gangs. Here are a copule of my favourites: We have a guy here called “El Presidente” because he’s just another worker but is always schmoozing with management and thinks he runs the company. And we have a manager called “Captain Chaos”.
I’ve had a few nicknames in my time; Klondor, Ez E, el__pwnerer (got into gaming for a while lol), bodybuilder and bob being the ones coming to mind. Klondor is the one that’s stuck since I was about 13 and I don’t remember where it came from. Mostly now I’m just known by my name as I move into the professional world however. Nicknames that stick are those that are either far fetched or personally unoffensive and I feel that having a nickname within a group of friends is proof of acceptance and general group approval and affection. Jim lighten up. Sounds like you were “verbally bullied” as a child and it still affects you. When I was 12 I weighed 240 pounds at 5’0″ and was called “lard-bag” but do you see me becoming oversensitive? Put a lid on it and man up Madeline
Between one friend and myself, we call each other ‘Fat Dolores’ (which alliterates in Dutch). In my old house I was known as Mr. Weirdo (last name is Wierda), Crazy-eyes (same reason), and Sir Break-a-lot (I get injured…. a lot), and lately it has evolved to “Guv’nor”, but only in certain situations. When they call my Guv’nor, I always call ‘m all ‘laddy’.
My oldest nickname is ‘Flip’, due to my alleged resemblance to the rosy-cheeked and straw-blond boy who’s the face of hollands most famous jam.
http://www.animatieplaatjes.nl/plaatjesF/flipjetiel19.gif
I’m a firefighter and in my first year one if the guys started calling me “Fetus” – apparently because I’m small and have pale skin. It stuck, and now I even introduce myself to the rookies as Fetus.
I complete agree with Walt Frazier’s view of technology as a social solvent, ans it’s not only professional sport. In any line of work, if you have a coffee break with three colleagues it’s not uncommon that two of them are lost in their smartphones ad the third is listening to music in his earphones (I’m not making this up – I’ve seen it happen). It’s not surprising that some coaches in some sports have tried to eradicate that culture of electronic autism by banning electronic devices. Unfortunatelt it’s so ingrained they faced locker room riots.
Fascinating article and you should see Greg Davies’ comedy show about the subject recently aired on BBC tv- big laughs
In high school, a few of my close friends would call me Grizzly Adams, because of my facial and torso hair. In college, my fraternity gives out nicknames to members, and they saddled me with the entire first paragraph of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, just to see if I could remember it all. I do, but they don’t, so they call me Kafka.
I started out as Worm Farm in Scouts because I could eat anything… Later, on the Air Force, I became Chappy and then down to Chaps. That one stayed pretty much, it’s easier to call on the field…
Now that I am older and in not so in shape any more, I’ve become BigChaps, especially online.
My name is benjamin and professionaly ive always introduced myself as benjamin but if im meeting new people ill tell them I preffer to be called benji, ever since my brother started calling me this 14 years ago its just the name that stuck, I feel it provides familiarity when I talk to the people ive met.
From grammar school until graduation, I was called Rose; first from my last name (Melrose) but then also as a Rosie Palmer joke also which would probably offend too many people these days.
I attended a small rural school where things were “done a certain way,” so when I got to Oklahoma City for university, I went over the top a bit with trying to rep the hip-hop culture that I liked so much. This brought the nickname Snoop from the boys, but some girls tweaked that into Snoopy. My closest friends still are from that university, and Snoop(y) has lasted for nearly twenty years between us.
Between one friend and myself, we call each other ‘Fat Dolores’ (which alliterates in Dutch). In my old house I was known as Mr. Weirdo (last name is Wierda), Crazy-eyes (same reason), and Sir Break-a-lot (I get injured…. a lot), and lately it has evolved to “Guv’nor”, but only in certain situations. When they call my Guv’nor, I always call ‘m all ‘laddy’.
My oldest nickname is ‘Flip’, due to my alleged resemblance to the rosy-cheeked and straw-blond boy who’s the face of hollands most famous jam.
On my basketball team we had a lot of great nicknames. Big Kriz, Little Chris, Powerman, Jan the Gun, Zee Three, Baggy, Heinrich, and then some. I was Moneyboy, which highlighted my ability to score the ball. Good times!
People seem loathe to use my real name and just end up generating nicknames for me. During high school and college, different people called me Big Chief, Butterscotch (don’t ask, seriously), Tinman, and Coyote. In my unit I’ve been titlted Charlie Brown and Bloodthirsty Killer, though now people usually just refer to me as JC.
I have had a few nicknames. Some of which I later used as my online handle. Ad’lan for example, is the name by which I am known in a few forums, but is actually a result of a friends older brother mishearing my name and it stuck. Then it became Uvagad-Luvagan when people began to develop a local dog latin cant.
When I joined the TA, I quickly got the Nickname Boarhunter, and it stuck so much many people there didn’t know my real name. In my Final year I was a Section IC, My Section all called me BH long before they knew the reason why. In my Second year I was being introduced to senior officers (including the Brigadier) as ‘Ocdt Boarhunter’. Many reasons for the nickname were postulated… Did I like the Larger Ladies? Did I hunt for very Boring Facts? (I was known being able to bullshit a lecturette on nearly any subject for 5 minutes).
The real reason was my first tattoo, my only one when I joined the Army, was a wild Boar, my first kill with a longbow. I used it as the subject of my examination lecture, and so all my fellow Ocdt’s heard me tell the Bowhunting story and I was always eager to retell it and show off my tattoo. I was pretty glad to get away with Boarhunter, as the only other thing I did to distinguish myself at first was throw up after circuit training. And the Other Nicknames: Big T, Happy Feet (so called because he got hypothermia), Irish 1 and Irish 2, Mr Happy Day’s. Most everyone else went by surname, but nearly every year, some idiot writes their self invented nickname on their helmet.
How about “Lady Bug” for Jim.
Wonderful article, I’m glad nicknames got some attention on this site as their importance is often overlooked. Its common in some cultures that nicknames or professions actually have a place in the individuals last name.
For example if you look at the Czech surnames you will find that they were often directly related to the individuals profession, position in society, personality. (Novak – Newcomer, Vesely – cheerful, Cerny – Dark haired)
My maternal grandfather, Pops (all his children and grandchildren called him this) was the king of nicknames. My mother says I have inherited his trait for penning nicknames.
I coach high school debate and my younger students can’t wait to get a nickname. I think for them it is recognition that they are really part of the team. The year I coached my younger brother’s Little League Baseball team, I gave all the boys nicknames. I love collecting baseball memorabilia, but my favorite item is the baseball signed by all those boys using their nicknames.
I was Mean Mountain Mike, the “Mean” part was the reverse identifier because I was gentle and soft-spoken (still am); and the “Mountain” was for my size, the biggest kid in my class (even now I am 6’5″ and more than 20 stone).
During the 2-1/2 years that I have studied martial arts, my intructors and other black belts have addressed me as “Ninja Paul.” I always thought it was a bit of a stretch given what I see as my mediocre skill level, but more recently I’ve come to own it and have begun to refer to myself as Ninja Paul over the phone and when signing a Thank-You card to the dojang after my mother’s passing.
“Conversely, a man who will not accept his nickname — “My name is Ralph! Don’t call me Dumbo!” — shows that he does not trust his brothers and thus cannot be fully integrated into the group.”
I think this is a limited way of understanding the phenomenon. Nicknames can have all the positive effects you have listed, but they also have a place in bullying and harassment processes (eg. Dumbo would not be a gentle way of calling someone with big ears, it reduces the person to a physical trait, and refers to it derogatorily). This has to be understood, because a belief like the one I quoted, risks of putting the blame on the victim (something that usually happens in a harassment process)
Sully’s and Josh Armenta’s comments (done light-heartedly and just for the joke, I know) could be examples of this harassment dialectics.
When I played college football, some guys had nicknames. One kicker was given the name “Donut” because of his “spare tire.” It stuck so much that guys on his freshman hall (who didn’t play ball) didn’t even know his name was David. Everyone — even coaches — just called him Donut.
Now as a high school coach, we have guys with these nicknames: Big Nasty, Sasquatch, Lighthouse, Smiley, Flea.
It’s all fun!
I’m in the Canadian Forces Reserves, and I constantly wear issued gloves whenever we work, train on weapons or anything that means my hands could get really dirty (yeah I’m like that). I wear them so much my army friends call me “mittens”.
In response to Jim: I wonder if the hazing we see today that actually is harmful and very degrading is because there isn’t a more harmless way to test someone’s resolve, team spirit, and loyalty. Perhaps the ritual of the nickname is a socially-evolved, safe form of group bonding.
Human behavior is very hard to control. It’s a bit like water; you squish it down in one place, and it will come up in another. Bonding rituals WILL take place. The question is what form will they take? Will they be relatively harmless, like nicknames? Or will they be degrading and dangerous?
I remember my dad telling me as a kid that I would soon only be referred to by my last name… He was right. He also forgot to mention that it rhymed with “poop” which became my second nickname. And of course in college poop became “sh*t”.
My last name is basically my full name. I’ve had several girlfriends only refer to me by my last name, making things a little awkward. I introduce myself by my last name, which also makes people a little cross. Even my favorite shirt is an old softball jersey with “Uncle Poop” written on the back of it.
Coop, Poop, Uncle Poop, Sh*t, and Uncle Sh*t have all become who I am. Not the best, but hey, at least my friends know I have a good sense of humor.
When I was little was called many names but I did not like them because I took offense to them. Most of them made fun of my big ears. The 2 that have stuck was “Eddie” and “Flaco” (Skinny in Spanish). I don’t mind it. Our family is from El Salvador so we are used to calling our cousins by their nicknames here’s a few
my brother Christopher Joel AKA Chris or Joelito (dimunitive)
my sister Rosybeth AKA Rosy or Rosita, my brother and I also have a nickname for her but we can only call her that.
my father is Jose Cristobal but people who know him call him “Toba” or they go by his middle name.
my cousin Eladio AKA Chandi (pronounced CHAND-DEE)
So I was a little chunky in jr high wrestling and the nicknames really sucked. But you know what, (and this is where I disagree with Jim) the hazing was a part of growing up. It toughened me up and made me who I am today. Sure I might have shed some fat kid tears, but I got past it and came out a better person.
Nicknames really came into play in college. String any two explaitives together and that was likely someone’s nickname for at least a week. We also had this unspoken rule of “juking” eachother. Walking down the hall, you both juke at eachother as if you are going to attack, retract, and then go on your merry way. No words exchanged and no acknowledgement beyond the death stare.
I’ve had many nicknames in my life and I’ve always enjoyed them once I got used to it. They became a badge of honor. I got one in high school from my buddies that I used to skate with that Ive carried proudly to this day. It reminds me of the days when all I did after school and during summer was hang out with my friends and enjoy life. I had one at the mechanic shop I worked at for years. And I have one now as a mechanic in the army. Only the select few can use them, and that’s how it should be. It’s a right of passage into a group.
There were three Eric’s (various spellings) in my core group. I did not like being called by my last name all the time. It seemed impersonal. One day I railed about that and suggest my friends call me by any manner of other names, some derogatory, some insulting to others, etc… I happened to say Biff among the names. Being as we were mostly anti-greek it stuck. The children of one of my friends still call me Uncle Biff. My children had no idea who they were talking about until just a couple of years ago.
On my first game for my school’s senior rugby team, I forgot to take the tag from my scrum hat, so for a couple of years I was known as Tag
with a name like hunter i never needed a nickname, people like to say “hunter” but i finally got a nickname in my early twenties and it still sticks in our crew, they call me seasons, long story short i spice it up, its a reference to my way with the ladies.
I started out as Spock because that is how mom combed my hair, straight forward. Then Elvis, I started combing my hair. Then in the Navy it was father mouse, my religious side plus being quiet as a mouse. Then captain dungaree because I kept my dungarees so well ironed. Then crash, I was involved in 3 accidents with GOV’s but c’mon only one was my fault!
That was NSGA Panama a small command full of nicknames: boatmotor-his name was Evinrude, johnboy, buba-he was from Arkansas and it fit! And various others that shouldn’t be typed out loud
We had a name for guys who didn’t like to be one of the guys-sis
I haven’t read all the comments, so I don’t know if it’s been mentioned, but when people move around a lot and kids don’t grow up through school together it might cut down on nicknames that last. We changed locations five times through our school years, so my brothers and I came into adulthood without any nicknames.
I got my nickname “Bubi” in elementary school, there was another boy, who wasa good friend at the time with the same first name so the others called him by his first name and me (often) by my surname, but because my surname is relativly long it got shortend and over the time it changed to bubi
In chronological order:
Froot Loop (surname derivative)
Tech (originally “Technical Support”)
Poopka (also surname derivative)
Honey / Baby
Jussy
but my favorite so far: Daddy.
I founded a fraternity chapter at my university. Since my friends and I were the originating class, we took it upon ourselves to sit down one night and give each other nicknames. Some stuck, most didn’t. Mine got shortened because we didn’t want to pay the letter count for all that stitching. Regardless, everyone wore their name proudly even if they didn’t particularly care for the name they were bestowed.
Fast forward a couple years – a new class of guys have been inducted as associate members. One in particular had a point of view similar to Jim’s. He stayed with the fraternity for a semester or two and then mostly disassociated, in large part because he – like the article explains – never meshed with the group. He ostracized himself through his lack of acceptance.
In no way do I agree with the idea that nicknames are a form of hazing. More often than not I’ve seen nicknames given not due to some physical characteristic but from an action or event that earned the holder their moniker. A faux-pas, a verbal blunder, a questionable decision – these are what lead to the most notable, enduring, and repeatable nicknames. They come from experience, not malice.
Excellent post.
For Jim, I was going to suggest the nickname Wimpy, but Madeline is so much better!
You forgot about insulting nicknames used to somebody’s face to degrade, humiliate, and traumatize, reminding them constantly of their outsider status. It took till the 10th grade for that to even slow down.
I’ve been the “Trumpet”, the “president” (surprisingly, this arose in a group of friends that we go every now and then in the mountains and in college, where I was voted “future president” two years afterwards), the “Farmer”, “Smurf” (until I was fifteen I was really short for my age, now I’m over the mean)…
Nicknames in military groups must be less common now that females are integrated into many units.
A lot of these guys are lucky. My nickname used to feel like the biggest slap in the face…”fivehead.” It went on for an equal amount of years too. Fortunately my facial features outgrew it…much to the appreciation of the ladies. And now I can punch back verbally if needed. Does it hurt to hear it (in my head at least) nowadays? Not one bit haha.
In middle school I was ‘moose’ because I was big for my age (and had long gangly legs). In high school I was called ‘heiny’, a shortened form of my last name Heinbaugh. This one really stuck and is still used with old friends. I love the name ‘heiny… it has been a nickname my male family members have been honored with over the years and I take pleasure when I am called by that name. Only a friend can call me’heiny’.
I had a seminary professor call me Gladiator. This was given to me after reciting part of the movie at length during class and the fact a look a little like Russell Crow in the movie, according to the professor.
I am a chronic nicknamer. My entire cell phone contact list is coded by nicknames. In my experience, men and women all love to be nicknamed, even if it is something politically incorrect. I can’t tell you how many times people have come up to me and asked “What’s my nickname?” with big, excited expressions on their faces… usually it’s something outrageous that makes them laugh… then they go tell everybody else to call them that :).
At times, when I meet people, they will ask me, “Do you go by David or Dave?”. I tell them “David”, but there are some who know me well that call me Dave, but that has to be earned. I don’t like it when people I just met assume they can call me Dave.
Another reason for the decline in nicknames, lays in social media. Every forum/twitter accounts etc. leave name & avatar combos up to the user. You get to brand yourself. Do you want to be Jim Smith or CaptainPocketRocket? By doing this yourself, you remove much of the opportunity for others to do so based on the situation. Very rarely I’ve seen a forum member nick-named, but it’s usually based on a particularly onerous (to type or remember) username.
I’ve had a quite a few over the years, but none that have stuck. Most of them were derivatives of my last name anyway, but in grade 10 soccer I was dubbed Adam by a teammate because he didn’t know my real name and I apparently “look like an Adam”.
I’m a freshmen in high-school and all my friends call me Gibby or Gibster. The reason behind it is that I’d do the Truffle Shuffle in 6thgrade and so they called me Gibby 2 people started it and as my friend circle grew to a solid 10 they all call me it. My girlfriends friend will call each other sluts as a joke in greeting.
@Jim –
I’m a little disturbed that you feel that a child’s friend coming up with a nickname for him is “disowning their identity from what they were given”…..as a parent, you give your child a NAME at birth, but you can’t give them an identity – that has to be created by themselves as they go out in the world, one of the biggest parts of which is making connections with other people and making friends, and those friends may call him “Smitty” or “Dogbreath” instead of “Benjamin Douglas Applewhite Jr.” (or whatever “identity” you gave him), but that’s what growing up and becoming a fully realized adult is all about.
Jim sounds like he never got passed his nicknames as a kid and cried about them. He probably pays a high $ psychologist for help today.
I had have had my share, Patsy has always stuck around because of my name, In H.S. it was Otter Pop (after the desert) not sure where that one actually came from. Now I get called CoonAss alot. Having moved from S. Louisiana to another state.
Tree. I went to a small DoD high school overseas and at 6’5″ was the tallest kid in the school. Don’t exactly know when it started but it was sort of obvious. So for Christmas one year I dressed as a Christmas tree and walked around campus and went to class with tinsel and ornaments hanging all over me. Cemented that name!
Have a friend in the rugby club we call “Opie,” after Ron Howard’s character in the “The Andy Griffith Show.” Like the article points out, it started as ribbing and he fit the character. From our side, despite anything else, he is ours. He may get in trouble but we’ll take care of him, not the other team or someone else.
I get it. I’ve played with “Doc”, “Hagar”, “Catfish”, “Hands”, “Gumby”, “Pig”, “Pretty”, “Spray” (short for hairspray) and many more through the years. I can’t help but think back with fondness of the time I spent with those guys and the stories behind some of the names. Some few I never even knew their given name.
Think this “old boy” might even try to get in a run at practice this week!
I was part of the Men’s Glee Club at my alma mater and when we would go on tour one of the many traditions was for the leadership (Cabinet) to come up with nicknames for every single member (known as your Tur name). They were usually one or two steps removed. No one knew which one was theirs but they had to figure it out ASAP because responsibilities were assigned to your tur name. A large part of the first bus ride was figuring out who was who.
For example, in our annual Bass-Tenor football game (tackle, no pads) I had gotten popped in the eye and got a real nice shiner. Eventually I figured out my Tur name was Fergie. The line of reasoning went something like this:
Black eye -> Black eyed peas -> Fergie.
I had also gotten Dumbo (I have big ears) on a previous tour. All of them were in good fun. While none of mine stuck, some guys had them stay with them for years. Dirty Harry, Flava Flav, Aunt Jemima, all classics.
My last name is Hupfer, which no one can pronounce correctly. So my buddies started calling me “Humper.” Sometimes they shorten it to “Hump.” It’s all in good humor, so I don’t mind.
Lighten up Francis (Jim)
I give the kids on my little league baseball team nicknames. The names are pretty well thought out. i don’t make any of them hurtful, but if a kid sweats a lot, he will be called “Sweaty” I have a kid that i named “Cheech” because he played in the grass during the game and if i called him by his real name today he would be offended. that was 6 years ago and when i see him, it’s still “Cheech” By the way, i have had a nickname since birth.
I completely agree with this article in that nicknames serve an important role amongst men in their formative years. In high school i was very skinny and quiet because i lacked confidence as a result of my skinniness. My best friend was a year older so when i remained in school after he graduated i thought my senior year would be hell. Fortunately, I made a group of friends who had a charismatic character and he decided to name our group. The core group, or “founding fathers” all gave nicknames to each other and as the article states, i didn’t like mine much at first. They called me “D-Low” because i was still a quiet kid and operated on the “down low.” (Also, my initials are DL)
Eventually, as the core group got tighter, and the group at large expanded, i really came to love my nickname. I became more confident and while my personality outgrew the original meaning of my nickname, it stuck. I’m 11 years removed from graduation, i was the only one from the core group to move away and even though they all stayed in the same city, some got married and started families. We’ve all changed some in one way or another, but every time i visit, the core group gets together. To this day, only they call me by my nickname, never by my name. And I cherish that.
In Naval Aviation, nicknames are codified as callsigns. They are often derogatory, but for the reasons set forth in the article, become endearing. I believe they serve another purpose in the military though. The constant banter and insult going on amongst brothers in arms helps to maintain an atmosphere where one can be brutally honest with each other professionally. One can make a mistake in an evolution and be professionally debriefed without “feeling bad”. With the evolution of a thick skin, you can actually improve your performance by being able to take criticism. In my experience, the guys who complained about their callsigns were the same guys who couldn’t hack being told that they gooned something up and were generally poorer performers than the rest. I’ve been “Butts” for about 15 years now; doesn’t bother me a bit.
Grade school Mean Mike
Jr and HS Rooster.
College Delta
Love this piece. Especially how nicknames are more about inclusion in the group. A big thing that separates men and women. Even in my 40′s I still call my buds by their nicknames: Froggy, Frenchie, The Nerd, Cheeks …
My name is Ransom and my nick name is Handsome Ransom. Pretty self explanatory. jk
Chester the molester and “Goose” (from my father). Didn’t like either of them. Hated the first because I was young and it was not used “inclusively”. Hated the second because my mother took great relish in explaining the rationale for it: all a goose does is eat, squawk, and… void itself (the nickname was assigned when I was a baby).
As I got older, acceptance came because I realized the name-based one came from the fact that the only thing they could make fun of me for was my name, they couldn’t compete in the arenas that mattered to me. I came to accept goose because I tied it to my father’s being in the navy and that was one of several areas where I admired him (even though I didn’t emulate that one).
I had some aunts and uncles try calling me “little chet” but it confused me because in my immediate family I was chester and my dad was chet, and to the aunts and uncles I was “little chet” and my dad was chester. So I had to insist on a consistent name so I knew what was directed to me.
Papa Goat; LB; Stumpy; Bullfrog; Jer-Bear; Jere-migo; Remy . . . and any formation of my last name.
The first three are all trail names. I got LB a few years ago, but didn’t like it so much. It stands for Limb-Breaker, because I’ve broken each limb at least once. It’s a cool fact, but not a good name. So, later that year at school I led a trail maintenance trip to Billy Goat A trail outside of DC, and called it “Trip 1: Papa Goat,” with the intention of having three such trips that semester (Papa, Mama, Baby). Unfortunately, only the first materialized, but with it came my name. I’ve held onto Papa Goat since then, and it has been immortalized in many a trail log around the country.
Stumpy was from a work crew I was a part of this past summer.
The other names are from school or summer camp; my brother and I share the nicknames that stem from our last name (neither of my sisters ever got names, and while I didn’t think too much of it before, I understand more from this article!). Jer-bear is pretty much used by my female friends and partners, Jeremigo by my roommates (Amigo), and Remy is just a lazy-mans way to say my name.
My brothers in ETPi gave me the moniker “Blow Job” or “BJ”. The reason for this is at a party I got intoxicated from mainly one drink: The Blow Job. How one gets a blow job is by having it ordered for oneself, then one has to take the shot from the purchaser’s knees. Also, while intoxicated I (apparently) started taking them from my own knees.
my nick name is Bobo. it started out as Bobo the Monkey as i would get drunk with my mates and fall asleep after climbing a tree. its now changed to Bobo Baggins for 2 reasons one is i have hairy feet like a hobbit and the 2nd reason is i like lord of the rings and the hobbit.
The list of my buddys nicknames is quite extensive, Ive included the best below.
Webs – Always lying and getting caught in the web of lies
ShittyPants – actually shit his pants after refusing to use the high school toilets, blamed it on the dog
Cummy/Cummer – ….
Shit Lip
Jonts
Slime
Creeps
PaPa
Rupert – no idea where this one came from
Scooter or Scoot, Grade school play on Scott
Georgey Porgey, Play on Jorge..one of my middle names
Eel I was 6’3” and 170 and a swimmer
Cam or Chameleon, in the service I was VERY good and concealment and one member of my team made a comment along the lines of that guys is a f#%#ing chameleon and it stuck
Piper for the last 20 year, I play them and used bpiper as a username so even in a band with 30 pipers, I was piper and there was Kilty and slowpoke and wild bill, and Larry and Darrel(real names) but that meant we had an “other brother Darrel “, pleats, and gogo(female) among others. And for most it was only the band called you that, Kiilty, Piper and OBD excepted.
Piper
Aka Scott Guillermo Felipe Jorge Patterson de la Garza de Hernandez Hudson
Lots of opportunities there when you marry a Spanish Catholic longtime New Mexican family to an Arkansas by way of the Appalachians Hillbilly family
If I may, some of us womenfolk don’t actually mind a “derogatory” sort of nickname, if we know the person well enough – and yes, we do sometimes nickname each other by our most unacceptable qualities!
Somehow this brings to mind a boy I knew in high school – he was quite tall (at least six-five I’ve heard), and I was quite skinny, and one day he decided to pick on me in the hall and shouted at me “Hey, twig-monster!” (not expecting any retaliation, as I hardly spoke to anyone those days…)
But for some reason I turned about and shot back “Hey, giraffe!”
I don’t think we ever called each other by proper names again after that. :)
I was “T-Munnee” in college for no reason whatsoever. I asked the guys why they decided to call me that; they shrugged and said it just rolled off someone’s tongue one day and it just stuck. It sounds like the kind of nickname that would be given to an African-American man; I am white as paste and so were all of those guys (didn’t stop them from being connoisseurs of hip-hop, though).
One place nicknames still abound is the military. Call signs are “awarded” for a variety of reasons by those in a unit. My call sign was “Smokey,” given for reason which I won’t elaborate, other than to say I am proud of my call sign and embarrassed about the reason.
My other nickname is JAFO, relating to my job as wing historian. It’s the one I carry to this day.
My nickname that my friends from home still use is “Barbarian”. I first got a nickname that wasn’t based on my name on my first day of football during my freshman year of high school. The coach asked me what my position was, to which I responded “I don’t know, I’m new, I’ve never played before.” The coaches and players started calling me “the new guy” until I got my shot in a game in week 3. The coaches had noted my rough nature and put me in at fullback, giving me an inside handoff intended to be a short gain. When I bowled over the linebacker and safety for large gains up the gut play after play, the offensive coordinator started calling me barbarian because I never stopped. The name has stuck with me amongst my football buddies and coaches even years after we played our last game together.
I had a I worked with who we called “Beaker” because A) his head was shaped like the muppets and B) he would talk so much that after about 10 mins all you would hear is “Meep meep meep meep.) But after we found out the guy had some serious lack of interpersonal skills, we just called him by his last name and “Beaker” became an insult.
I got stuck with “Fist” thanks to a tendency to punctuate my enthusiasm with a solid fist-swing. I’ve always wondered if there was something derogatory about it, but it doesn’t matter much. Better Fist than some other bit of anatomy.
Nicknames have always been a way of identifying folks you know and keeping them close. Even when the nicknames are unflattering, there is a certain bond and respect by which we all live via our nicknames. However Jim, you have to not be “on the bubble” to get one that actually is endearing and not just a test of your mettle. Initiation rites (and often nicknames) are crucial to the maintenance of traditions between members of various groups especially those that have many members over time. In a world going soft, we would be lucky to consider the traditions and cultural meaning to the rites that many of us have experienced and persevered through.
Take care and keep your teeth sharp boys,
- Doc
AKA Priest, AKA Rock
The Boss
Bossman
Not sure why, I’ve never really assumed that role in a group setting. I’m actually pretty shy.
“Marvel” – my buddies and me have call signs for when we’re out and about, especially at bars. I got Marvel because I’m so sly and subtle that nobody sees what I’m doing – like I have superpowers. I’m pretty proud of it.
I find myself strongly agreeing with what the limitations of who can call you what. It’s really awkward when you get a nickname that comes from someone with who you have no bond or someone tries to use your nickname who really shouldn’t.
I’ve had three nicknames. The first, which I can’t remember, was bestowed by my sixth grade English teacher. He gave everyone in class a nickname. Not a single one stuck. I just remember that I hated mine, he insisted on using it, and I never responded to it.
The second came when I worked as a local fast food joint a the fry cook. I tried to send out some out some chicken strips that were, uh, high brown. My boss caught me and we disagreed as to whether or not they were suitable to serve. One of my co-worker piped in “The Colonel likes his extra crispy!” and I was called Colonel at work ever since by everyone except my boss.
The last one was “monky” [sic], an unfortunate combination of my first and last name auto assigned to me for my log in name when I was a student IT admin in high school. My friends in the IT group started calling me that.
The last two I could live with and actually enjoyed. The first one, not so much.
@Skip – You win.
@Lady Bug – Grow a pair.
I never get tired of reading this blog, always a great read.
I have had so many nicknames that it is hard to keep track of them all. It seems like every time I am involved in a new group/team I get a new nickname. I have always liked my first name, Jeremiah, and hated it when people try to shorten it to “J”, “Jeremy” or “Jerry”. The names given to me in from my family and fellow Marines have always been my favorite. As for this being HAZING, not at all. More like learning to man up in an environment that constantly reminds you of who you are and where you came from.
Here are just a few:
Toes Maolne or just Toes
Fo’toe or Four Toe
Shotgun (weapon of choice in the military)
Schooty (play on my last name)
Sh!tty (play on my last name)
Sh!thead (I was not the brightest grunt in the company)
Casper
Fester
Early K-8 nickname.Luke turned into Luke Duke (from the Dukes of Hazzard), which turned into just Duke or “The Duke.”
Also, Jim is now…
Jimmy The Downer.
Mine happened to be “Little Guy”. I’m taller than all my friends by a few inches.
My Grandpa had nicknames for us. I was a clumsy kid and had gotten stitches in my head about four times by the time I was six. (My parents were suspected of child abuse at the hospital when they recognized me, but I really was just an idiot.) My nickname: Bumper.
Growing up in Mexico, my high school nickname was “Borrego” (lamb) or sometimes simply “El Borre.” I honestly can’t remember why.
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