Monday, March 27, 2006

Wow!

I am blown away by the outpouring of stories that you all have contributed. Thank you so much for taking the time. I hope to tell you soon what it is I have in mind, but to do so now would be speaking out of turn, and possibly a jinx, if you believe in that sort of thing.

Here's another question for anyone who is interested. What are some of the nicknames given to friends or acquaintances of yours, and how was that nicknamed earned? For instance, in a small town where I once lived, a very large and simple boy named Dan was called Dandroid. A girl in the same town was attached the Moniker Handjobala, another Easy Edith. I'm especially interested in nicknames that have been given in reverence or respect. One of the big guys in my school was called Hoss--not original by any stretch. Another big fella I knew was called Yank. That one could go either way, but this was in Houston, and he was apparently from the north, and nobody messed with him.

8 comments:

mr. schprock said...

Handjobala! I'm still laughing at that one.

There was this kid we knew in junior high who had a little birthmark on his face; we called him "Spot." When he had a medical procedure done to remove the birthmark, we called him "Spotless." Poor bastard just couldn't win.

Natalie said...

Dean's best friend was really skinny in college, so everyone called him Skinny. They still do even though he's got a beer gut now. In fact we all thought so little of it that when Dean was the best man in Skinny's wedding this summer we couldn't understand why it was so funny when Dean referred to him as Skinny in the best man's toast. Skinny's real name is Andy and they all hung out with another guy named Andy who subsequently became known as Fatty even though he was of average size. In fact, I think Skinny is now fatter than Fatty.
Skinny is a lawyer now, so when Dean emails him, he calls him "$kinny" instead. I alwyas find the evolution of nicknames even stranger than nicknames themselves.
BTW-The same group of guys called me "Jack" in college because I was at the time having a rather intimate relationship with one Jack Daniels. Since then Mr. Daniels and I have had a falling out and have yet to reconcile.

Kathleen said...

I called one of my friends in college, Minny, not for Minnie Mouse, but because she was skinny - Skinny Minny. I lost touch with her a few years back (I think she moved w/o telling anybody) and she was still Min or Minny to that day. She hated it!!! ;-) She called me Moose because I wasn't exactly huge myself, but I always beat her in the weigh-in by about a pound. I weighed a whopping 103 to her 102.

One guy in college used to call me Lemur. I had made the mistake of telling him that my aunt called me 'Leenie and he got Lemur out of it.

Most of the nicknames I can think of for my friends come from their chat names which is where we met 11 years ago. For the most part, we call each other by the correct name, but every once in a while a Spike or Silver or emmo2 or Queenie slips out.

Ultra Toast Mosha God said...

Where do I start? Deep breath....

Kerry Lear: Egg and Beer - A girl that was bullied at school for being fat and for having farts that smelt of the aforementioned substances.

Chris Woods: Meathead/Van der Valk - A boy with a massive head and a shock of bright white hair.

Michael Westmacott: Wheresmygarage - so called for famously burning down his parents garage, which contained his fathers irreplaceable vintage Mini Cooper. He was trying to burn spiders. It made the local paper under the following headline: Boy Boffin Blows Up Garage. Priceless.

Me: Goodcrap: For my terrible skills at football. The first half of my surname combined with the description of my talent makes for an interesting juxtaposition.

Scott said...

Mr. Schprock - That was classic, and just the kind of mean nickname I'm talking about.

Erin - The girls used to call me dimples too. Thanks for the embarassing reminder.

Nat - Nicknames are a testament to our collective comic genius. I think you are right about the evolution of nicknames. It really is quite interesting. Hmmm, you and JD, huh? I've met that guy a few times myself.

Kat - I know what you mean about making a mistake and telling a nicknamer something personal. Sometimes I wish there was a Tivo-esque rewind that you could use in life.

Toast - Those are some good ones. I feel bad for Egg and Beer though. Ouch!

ProducerClaire said...

We didn't have that many nicknames - I was Carrot, so named for my red hair. My friends Mel and Melissa were Mel1 and Mel2. Other than that, we were kinda dull.

In college, we all started going onto LambdaMOO and people called us by our online names - so I was Curi. Oh, and there was one guy who was Salt Shaker - we were convinved that he bugged every salt shaker in the school cafeteria just to know when people were talking about him.

Sadie Lou said...

My maiden name was such an easy target:
Sadie Stackhouse

I was eventually known in highschool as--Sadie Crackhouse

I didn't smoke crack but I was into pot. I had to remind all my friends to lose the nickname around my folks.

My friend Jessie Todd came to be known as Lung Butter
He was always smoking and then spitting huge, gross loogies.

My dad's best friend's name is John Fredderking. Everyone calls him Freddie.
I remember asking my dad," So Freddie's name is Freddie Fredderking?"
My dad had to ask Freddie what his real name was--that's how much his nickname WAS his name.

Tee/Tracy said...

Nicknames, nicknames... Some called me Andretti because I was known for driving a bit fast. Two guys were always calling me "Slodvika" because they said I look Russian. (Which I'm part.)
One friend gave me the nick "Tee", just short for Tracy - that one stuck as you see. We called each other by last names alot, or by our Spanish class names. (Mine was ReNee - even though the teacher told me ReNee is a boys name in Spanish, I was insistent - and I wanted to capitalize the "N" to be special - so I did. LOL.)
We had a girl named "Gina" in our Spanish class. The teacher gave her the name "Jorgina" Which is Georgina but pronounced "WHORE-heena" - so that stuck to her. LOL.

There was a kid with the last name Dulgner but he was really messy so people called him Dogner.

There was one kid who was really cool - I don't even remember his real name because everyone referred to him as "Snap". LOL.

This one kid Clifton, his head was a little weird shaped and all his friends called him "Peanut" but in a nice way. It was endearing. :)

... I'm having trouble thinking of others though I know there were tons. I was just reading your latest post and that sounded like SUCH an interesting idea! ... I can't wait to see what you do.