Nicknames.
They can be good.
They can be bad.
My husband is notorious for using nicknames in his family. I think just about every person has a nickname that was chosen by him. They just fit so well that others pick them up and, voila! someone has a new nickname. Nicknames are a must and constantly evolving. One leads to another which leads to another and so on until there is THE ONE that just sticks. For example Brownie’s nickname is Bobby. It started off being Billy back when we had four girls and Mr. FR decided to give them all “boy” names. She was Billy for a while, then Billy Bob, then Bobby. Bobby has stuck for over four years. I wish I could say all the nicknames are so easy and ‘nice’ but, alas, they are not. “Toad” and “Bugsy McGruder” and “Chicken” and “Droolia” are some nicknames for the other girls but I won’t tell you which lest they get embarrassed.
Growing up I also had my share of nicknames. Sadly, they weren’t very nice ones. My brother liked to call me Monster Rat when he was mad at me. All he had to do was switch the t and s in my name Montserrat to get Monster Rat.
We moved to Georgia, from Miami, the summer before I started 7th grade. One thing you need to know about middle Georgia is pretty much all they have seen people wise are black or white. The kids at school didn’t know what to think when I showed up half way in between. So they called me Oreo. They just assumed I was mixed – that one parent was black and one was white. It didn’t matter to them if I tried to tell them otherwise. The color of my skin told them I was an Oreo.
Here are a couple of pictures to give you an idea of where I fell on the skin tone spectrum at school.
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| I’m 2nd from the right on the first row. |
It’s also kind of interesting to see that the drill team was made up of mostly white girls, while the basketball team was mostly black.
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| I’m 2nd from the left on the front row |
So you can kind of see how the kids were sort of confused about my cultural background.
While on the basketball team each player had a nickname. Mine became Motts (for Motts applesauce) because most of the girls on the team couldn’t even begin to pronounce my name correctly. Moosie and Mousie just didn’t cut it – at least in my book – so Motts it was. My sister still calls me this! Incidentally, my favorite sport was basketball. I love, love, loved playing it. Even though I’m only 5’2 and and was easily blocked when I tried to do a lay-up. I made up for it with my dribbling. And stealing. I could steal a ball faster than you could say boo.
About halfway through the school year, the school put on a career fair. My dad came to talk about being a doctor. My mom came with him and the kids finally realized what I had been telling them all along. I was half Mexican.
The next day after school I told my mom. “Well, they’ve stopped calling me Oreo! Now they’ve started calling me spic.” She was NOT happy to hear that! Spic didn’t last too long, only about a week or so. Then in the spring we put on a play or talent show of sorts. My friend Brandie and I were the clean up crew. For that week we were known as **Spic and Span. Which I actually thought was a very clever play on words. ☺
**For my non U.S.A readers Spic and Span is an all purpose household cleaner.
I’d like to know what some of your nicknames were growing up and the stories behind them. Pleas share in the comments!
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My mother always called me “Beaner”…she doesn’t now seeing as I married a Mexican, but we still get a laugh out of it.
Mom called me HonPie and Dad called me Maude Snodgrass. My children are PunkinHead, Sweetheart, Pie, and Stinkyboy. — Don’t we do terrible things to our kids? (Sweetheart and Pie are both expecting babies. I wonder what nicknames theirs will get…)
Peachy, Peach, Snaps, and Ging as a kid–Middle name is Lee–yes my mother named me an adverb so I’m shortly, angrily, amazingly, and so on depending on my mood. My children are M & M, Weemo, Bear, Snickers, JC, Kater Gator, Punkin, and Penner Benner Boo often shortened to Penny. My husband also comes up with nick names for everyone. His is JoFish or JoKing.
My dad’s family had horrible nicknames. I had an Aunt Mutt, Uncle Hobo, Uncle Booger.
I got off easy, my dad called me Stink Pot. I went around telling people that my name was Shawon Mawie Stink Pot Weawer.
My daughters became Little Stinky and Tiny Stinky. My grandson, Linoln is Stinky Linky . . and does it ever fit!
Nicknames are awesome! I actually did a post about nicknames once on my private blog. I’ll have to find it and post it to my public one. I give nicknames to everyone in my family. They each have several but a few of them are, Miss America, Bee Boat, Habib, and Sasser.
My father-in-law gave one to each of his kids. All of them are so silly but somehow, they just seem to fit in a strange sort of way. One of them is “Doomst”. She’s very outspoken so when she wants to tell you like it is, we call it “being Doomsted out”. My husband’s nickname was Little Deet Man.
We love nicknames around here!
Mine was J-Bird…as in naked as a Jaybird…for obvious reasons.
But no one but my family called me that. They called me “J” because of that.
I got to be “big bird” to my family after the big yellow bird on sesame street. I have always been really tall.
In school I was Phlegm or just a rather loud cough. My last name was Fleming.
Nicknames can really hurt if you are not careful with them, or use them to be mean…but I like the one I have now from my dh…”my love” is great. 🙂
You’ve certainly had your share of nicknames!
My dad always called me “Sunshine” and now I call my oldest the same nickname.
In school I was sometimes called “Jude” (short for Judi) and kids would sing the Beatles song “hey Jude” to me.
My husbands family is not big on nicknames. Although, my mother-in-law calls everyone “sugar” – most of their names are not shortened either. My husband is Benjamin to them but he introduced himself to me as “Ben” so I call him Ben.
I think nicknames can make you feel special when they are not said in a negative way.
I never had a nickname growing up. But I have a cousin who received her nickname when she was a toddler and has stuck with her to this day. And she is nearing 20. The name: Nude or Nudey. She was always striping her clothes as a toddler and the name stuck.
Not really a nickname, but to my family I am Leslie Ann, to my husband’s family and to all my friends I am Leslie. One sister calls me Les which I HATE. She is the only one who gets away with it, from her, for some reason, I don’t mind it so much, but, from anyone else I absolutely HATE IT! My husband was called Vinegar Joe growing up, our daughter is Cody-ody-ody-oh, goin’ to the rodeo, and our son is DJ.
I had some interesting nicknames in high school… my name is Jana which my hispanic friend (that didn’t speak any spanish) started calling me Hana which turned into Hanable Lector which was then shortened to Lector! I also got called Janacouski (idk how to spell it.. but he’s a football player) I forgot about that one until just a week ago my husband was watching football and they announced his name!
My dad gave us funny nicknames. I was “Little Feist” as a kid because I had lots of tantrums. Then, once I started gymnastics, he called me “Flippit” or “Flip.” He called me that right through adulthood.
The only one of our kids who was consistently called a nickname was my son, who we called “Little Mister” for years. I don’t know why. It just seemed to fit him.
This is a fun post. I liked reading about your nicknames. It must have been strange being the only half-Hispanic family around!
The worst nickname I ever had was in highschool. A few kids began calling me “Guano” because of all the mascara I used to wear. Someone had heard somewhere that mascara was made out of bat poop, aka “guano.” Thank goodness that didn’t last too long! 🙂 Fun and interesting post! Got me running down memory lane 🙂