My cousin was having a baby boy. Their last name being Lester, we tried ever so hard to get them to name their kid Moe. Moe Lester. That would've been endless amounts of fun. Instead, they went with Kellen. Now this kid was huge. Every time he puked, he was Mt. Saint Kellen. And when he was just chillin being chubby, Kelephant. Oh how we are going to torture him later.
Focus: My nickname stuck early on. When I was potty-training I had a little teddy-bear with a backpack that had a book in it about potty training. I would say "where da Bookie-bear? where da Bookie-bear?" The name Bookie-bear was born. This stuck and it stuck hard. I grew up in a small town and for whatever reason everyone used it. Teachers would even slip and call me Bookie. To this day there would be people who don't know me by my first name, but if you said Bookie they would immediately recognize me. My mom still calls me Bookie and my dad started calling me ust Bear early on as I was a pretty big kid. Actually, it's rare when they call me by my first name. All in all I really like my nicknames and I wish I would have carried them into college. I had a few passing nicknames in college, but nothing stuck. Or nothing that I wanted to stick. You wear one purple shirt and people start calling you Barney... Alt Focus: I have a humorous last name. I would divulge it, but it's too uncommon and even without the first name I don't feel comfortable sharing it. It's even funnier when combined with my initials, which I didn't discover until my senior year in high school when we made some t-shirts with first initial - last name on the back. I have caught tons of shit over the years for it. And it never really stops. College professors used to give me shit on the first day of class. Real mature guys. But I learned to use it to my advantage. It is really an instant ice-breaker that's always good for a laugh and people generally remember me because of it. It's also a good litmus test for douchebags as some people just won't leave it alone. The worst part is that if I ever have a daughter (or even a wife that wants to take my name) I am screwed on names. Nothing sounds good. Their lives will be hell. I had a girl cousin who was adopted from a previous marriage and her name...was quite unfortunate.
I just have normal nicknames shortening my first name, but most people call me by my full name. I dig that, mostly because I don't think I look like any shortened versions. But, some of my boyfriend's friends refer to me as Katy Perry or Zooey. When I lived on the east coast co-workers called me Texas. Original! There was a girl in my middle school named Precious Love. I always felt sorry for her. "Precious" makes me want to projectile hurl while kicking puppies.
I pride myself on my nickname giving abilities. I think my best creation is for my friend Wallace who I call Wallaceraptor.
I think I've posted this before, but there was a realtor in the Calgary area named "Dimpy Aurora." I would've at least changed my first name, if that was me.
This is how I feel about my name. I won't divulge my last name (it's caused a lot of misunderstandings), but my first name is Kenneth, and growing up my mother insisted on me being called Kenny (a name that I hated from the very beginning. I don't know why, it just didn't sound like a good name for a boy [and I later found out that my dad hated it as well]). The only other options were my full name (which sounds dorky as hell) or Ken, and I didn't want to be Ken because I already had people asking me: "Hey Ken, where's Barbie?" But in highschool I grew a pair/toughened up and decided to go with Ken as a first name. 1) I actually think it's a pretty cool name for a man (I think men's names should be as short as possible) 2) As Gravitas mentioned above, I've learned to use it to my advantage: when I think the situation warrants it, I will introduce myself in the following manner: "Hi, I'm Ken, like Barbie's boyfriend." Trust me, it works like a charm. You stay in that person's memory. I think I'm much better off being a "Ken" than a "Kenneth" or "Kenny."
My only real lasting nickname has been 'Scootah' - when I was tiny I was Seany, or Seany-Scrawny when I was under weight - but I just ignored anyone using either name until they got over it. The Scootah nickname started from someone insisting that 'Real men don't have nicknames like Scooter!' and I had a moment of bravado and stupidity and interjected into the strangers conversation that my nickname was Scooter and what specifically was his fucking problem with it?' and it stuck. It became the current spelling when some brit friends decided that it was too formal with the ER. The best nickname I've ever given was when I was like 2 and a half. I couldn't pronounce the name of my parent's friend Gordon. So I called him dork. More than 25 years later, he's still called Dork by pretty much every one - at work and in his personal life. As an adult, I can now see that it was an incredibly fucking applicable mispronunciation. Jesus that guy is a fucking dork. I have a psuedo/foster little brother. He's about 8 years younger than me, and when he was 17, his mum (a friend) was in a rough spot and came to live with my then wife and I. He ended up crashing on the couch. As in I think he got off the couch to use the bathroom, shower, get food, and go to work. If he was at home - he was sitting or sleeping on the same spot on that couch. He had feral teenager stink - so I commented at one point that the couch smelt like a wet wookie. He's a big guy and had a bum fluff beard and metal head hair - so looks kind of like a wookie. The name stuck. 5 years later, other than his highschool friends - most people don't know that he has a name other than Wookie. His girlfriend wears a wookie charm on a necklace. His parents and grandparents all call him Wookie. Even when he cuts his hair and shaves - he's never getting rid of the name. Fortunately, he doesn't fucking smell as bad now, or I'd have drowned him for the good of humanity.
One of my younger brothers best mates “name” is Vince, they met on the first day of Uni. The first guy younger bro met that day was called Brad, so was the second guy, by the time he met his 3rd Brad little brother apparently said “fuck that, you’re Vince” (We were brought up shy) 8 years on and now his mother’s the only one who calls him Brad. Vince suits him. Personally, I don't really have any nicknames that have stuck.
People always shorten my name. I mean always, unprompted its always Dom. It doesn't bother me. In Spanish, its Dominigo. I had a family's house that I'd go to after school while my mom worked who spoke Spanish almost exclusively and did so completely exclusively the more I learned. They started calling me that because Dominick sounds retarded in Spanish. Best names I've heard? Ling Ling Wang and Monique Crapper. They work at the same company and I giggle every time they call our support line.
I was called Ducky from 6th grade till I graduated high school. Even the teachers would call me that. It wore off since I no longer speak to 99% of the people I went to school with, but at our 10yr reunion, my name tag was simply Ducky. I'm a ball of energy most times so I end up shuffling back and forth when I'm forced to stand for anything longer than 30 seconds. My elementary school girlfriend thought it was cute and told me and everyone who would listen I looked like a little ducky waddling along.
Asians have some of the best names. I know one girl named Jing Jing Mao and another named Wang Tingting.
My kids have multiple nicknames, just because one of my duties as a Dad is to mercilessly tease them like my Dad did to me. My daughter: Chicken Legs Lickin' Eggs (a play on the previous one from a word game we play) Smellarella Stinkerbell My son: Monkey Boy Chunky Toy (the same word game thing applies here) Smelladdin Crunka (he used to call the cat Crunka and Hunjy when he was a toddler, so we started calling him Crunka, and it just stuck) When I was a kid, I was small, so my Grandpa called me Jumbo. My brother was skinny, so he called him fatso. Grandpa was tall, so we called him Shortie. Good times.
Focus: Nicknames. What was yours growing up? I have a plain name, first and last, although my last name has a less popular spelling. Think Tom Jonz. The nickname that stuck in highschool was a sort of Latin-y version of my first name that my Latin teacher called me. In college, everybody called me both names together - like, not Tom or Jonzy, but always Tomjonz. Today, most of my friends just call me TJ. Alt. Focus: Funny real names. My Dad delivered babies, so he always had some great names and stories of great names - not sure how many of them were true. I played ball with a guy, Nimrod Josey, whose name I thought was funny. Dad told me that it reminded him of Nosmo. Nosmo? Operating Room doors used to have the big red / white sticker on them. When the two doors were split, it said Nosmo on one side and King on the other. Not sure if I believe that one . . . I knew a girl named Rosie Cox, but she got married and changed her last name. Growing up in the South, I knew plenty of Bubbas and Juniors (or the clever J.R. version). I knew a couple thirds who went by Trey or Trip - even a Trace. I never understood "Pete" as a nickname, though. Not short for Peter, but Pete was used like Chip or Bubba. I knew two different guys in college, both from the Northeast, who went by Pete - but their full names were like Edward Millhouse Allenburg.
I'm generally pretty quiet around people I don't know too well when I'm sober. When I was a kid, I was sober all the time, so I didn't really talk that much when I played basketball with people from my neighborhood. Considering I played anywhere from 4 to 7 times per week, this apparently struck the other kids as fairly unusual. At the same time, they never saw me in school (I believe at this point I was in private school; in any event, I've never gone to school in my neighborhood). Still, I was friendly enough, so they liked me, and things were pretty cool. Then, one day they put it together: Quiet? Friendly? Not in our school? Clearly this kid is slightly retarded! They weren't mean about it, they legitimately thought that I rode a short bus to a special school. Now, I'm not sure if you've ever tried to prove that you're NOT retarded to a group of people who aren't particularly intellectual, but it wasn't nearly as easy as I thought it would be. Mumbling stuff you know about calculus and the Scopes trial comes off pretty similar to babbling about clouds and furry dogs if the people don't know what you're talking about, and so a long-term nickname was born. And that, my friends, is how you come to be called Special Ed for a few years. Of course, I've had around a dozen other nicknames -- I share a first name with a comic book character, I'm somewhat tall and lanky, I have locks: all things that make it irresistible for people to call you stuff. I don't really mind the vast majority of them. I didn't even really mind Special Ed, especially because it meant that people liked to give me lollies.
It's rare enough for people to call me something other than my nickname that yelling my full first name at the top of your lungs is the standard "weird" greeting. I've also gotten "Natty Ice," "The Nat Man" (stupid), "Nate the Great," "Nathaniel" (not my name), etc. I also get "Rev" sometimes, because like someone else in this thread I'm an ordained minister. My favorite is probably this one - for a while me and my twin were known as the Super Mario Brothers, owing to our last name sounding kind of similar.
I've had a long string of nicknames, none of them in any way related to my actual name. I went by "Brain" for years, after the idiots I went to grammar school with thought that reading a lot and knowing the zip code of a neighboring town meant that i was unusually intelligent. I went by "Face" for awhile after wearing a gorilla mask to school. The one with the most staying power has been "Boomer", after a former boss (from about 30 years ago) decided I needed a nickname and tossed one out at random. To this day I run into near strangers who will ask me "Aren't you Boomer from Store X? I remember you!" Alt. Focus: Some unusual real names of people I've known: Candy Lane, Rack Malmstone, and my current favorite, Kum Suk.
I didn't really have a nickname until I went to school over in Southwest Louisiana, where apparently EVERYONE has a nickname. I mean, I'd be hard pressed to tell you anyone's real name. Off the top of my head, there was Potty, Poopie, Poo Poo, Pussy (yes, his nickname was "Pussy". Even his family called him that), Pedo, Sausage (Pronounced "Saw-Seese"), Big R, Redbeard, Heffer (who was a girl), Dupe, Nuts, Pine Knot, Pancho, Greek, Tha Jackal, Ghost, Big Sex, Pie, Pond (because the coach said he was slower than pond water), Swoll, Peaches, Sunshine, Big Chief, Metro... I could name them all day. I guess its a big Cajun thing. And I played football too, where the coaches would, in their words, give out nicknames "so we don't have to curse you by your God given name". But my nickname was a little... Different. And when people ask what it is, I can't really say it without looking like an idiot unless I give the back story. So here we go: I originally walked onto the team (long story), and was basically unknown by most of the coaching staff and players. So during our first scrimmage of two-a-days, my position coach throws me in there against the ones to see how I'd do... Which needs THIS backstory- my position coach (tight ends, by the way) was a little Cajun nutball, who was like 5'5 140lb soaking wet, who played WR for the team years ago. Being a pretty colorful guy, he had animated ways of describing what he wanted you to do, with his favorite term to describe knocking the shit out of someone being "Mauldick", as in "I want you to go and mauldick the FUCK out of the linebacker". ... So I'm in the scrimmage, and turns out, I did good. Like, REAL good. I pancake-blocked our starting DE on the first play, and had another pancake later in the series. And my coach is just loving it. He's bouncing up and down, talking shit to the defensive coaches, and yelling at me "FUCK YEAH, SON! YOU JUST MAULDICKED THAT MOTHERFUCKER! YOU'RE A MAULDICKER!". So the coaches started calling me "Mauldicker". Then my teammates started calling me that (though they shortened it to "Mauldicka"). Then they introduced me around town as that name. And a nickname like that evolves, too. Soon it was shortened to just "Dicka". When I grew my hair longer one year, it became "Maulshockey" (you know, tightend, Jeremy Shockey). When I got drunk, it became "Maltliquor" or "Whiskeydicka". My mom and dad, when they came to the games, became "Momma Dicka" and "Poppa Dicka". To this day, I don't think anyone that I played with or hungout with in school could tell you my real name. But I get a warm and fuzzy feeling of nostalgia when I talk to someone from over there and hear them call me "Dicka".