The mysterious origins of childhood nicknames... Tell your story!!!

[JEDIpartner]

So, here's a little slice of randomness for you... Today I got a note from my colleague, Stacie, that originally came from Allison, who works in another department. I didn't really pay attention to it until I was able to catch a breather. My eye caught "Hey Stacie" and it opened up the floodgates of memories from when I was in elementary school.

We had the weirdest nicknames for classmates: Mr. Sobieski was "Suds", Ms Adams was "Bomb" (Adam Bomb... Atom Bomb. Get it?), Michael H. was "Sauce" (I have no clue) and my friend Mr. Bandelow was "Bela Bimba", named after a song we learnt in music class.

One day, Bela Bimba grabbed a note that was being passed around in class and looks at it. In the middle of class, he looks up and says, "Hey! Who's 'Sticky'?!" I grabbed the note from him and said, "That's not 'Sticky', that's 'Stacy'!!!", to which he responded, "Well, whatever. Her name is going to be Sticky from now on!"

That then led me to remembering a girl named Christine. She had really hairy legs and I started referring to her as "Ranch", which was, apparently, short for "Tarantula". She remained "Ranch" even after she discovered the joys of shaving her legs. Similarly, I remember a college friend telling me about some girl he grew up with and her name was Arona. They used to call her "Arachnid" for similar reasons.

We were mean.

[Tycho]

Well, my nickname in college was "Ace."

Yeah, I'd like to say I got it in a good way, like as in "being an Ace with the ladies," but a lady-friend did give me my nickname.

It's actually for Ace Ventura, Pet Detective! Uh-huh. When I lived in the dorms when I first came to college, and where you weren't allowed to keep animals (beyond fish, I think), I used to find and rescue lost pets and put up fliers to try and return them to their owners. I love animals.

My dorm room played host to any number of cats and dogs, and even 2 rabbits and a ferret, as well as a guilla monster lizard at one time or another.


In my Civil War re-enactors company, I'm called "Keys." It's because I locked my gun and my keys in my car when we were called to assemble for practice with the battalion. So everyone waited for AAA to show up (that's the auto service club, not Antietam's Alcoholics Annonymous).

Anyway, when I finally got into my vehicle and got my weapon and my keys back, I met a girl who was walking back towards the Union camp. They guys had just given me that nickname and I didn't even know it yet. But they were shouting "C'mon KEYS! We haven't got all day. Pick it up!" and the girl (Grace who posed for my leading lady character later) asks me, "Why do they call you that?" I said with a smile, "It's because I will find the keys to a pretty little lady's heart." My commanding officer had personally gone out to find me. I found him walking right behind us. My "Keys" made the story for the night around the campfire that evening.

And I'm Tycho on this website, of course. When SirSteve's broke out amongst the pack to be my favorite SW Fan Site, I was reading the Rogue Squadron Dark Horse Comics. Wedge's Ex-O became one of my favorite characters, and he was drawn by the artists as sort of resembling me. I've never been a costumer, but if I ever decide to be, Tycho was a Rebel who could play a double-agent, and I had a LOT of costume possibilities open to me (except Sith or Jedi ) And his name for use as a screen name wasn't taken, as the Rebel Pilots are a niche interest and not as obvious or popular as Darth Vader for example. And Tycho sounds kind of like Psycho, and once I started posting a lot here, it further seemed very appropriate.

[sonofsokol]

I had a friend growing up named Jeremy and for some reason we all started calling him Jerome when we were in high school, which was then turned into Rome. Nowadays, everybody calls him Rome, even his parents.

[Snowtrooper]

I never had any real nicknames as a kid. In high school, I kinda had the nickname "Ape" because I was 6'4" and had big hands. In college, I had the name "Mad Dog" for awhile. I got it basically because during a night of heavy drinking, I chugged a bunch of Mad Dog 20/20 and proceded to puke my guts out all over my buddy's apartment. He was ****ed, but started calling me that for a couple of years.

[bobafrett]

I get called "Bear" a lot, but I am sure it is short for Barry, and not because I growl at people. I was called GI by a co worker, short for "gimp" that's okay though, because my first real girlfriend was his sister!

[JEDIpartner]

As for myself, I got called a lot of nasty things that cannot be printed here.

I went by "Gene" as a child 'cos my dad and I share the same name and my middle name is Eugene. The people who weren't being horrid called me "Gene-old" (like Harold, I guess?), "Bean" and "Machine".

Here at work, I go by "D". Well, my colleague Allison Hoffman calls me "D-Ho" and she's "A-Ho" to me. "Ho" is one of my favourite words. Oh, and Chrissy just came by and called me "Daleford". I forgot about that one. LOL

I had a friend growing up named Jeremy and for some reason we all started calling him Jerome when we were in high school, which was then turned into Rome. Nowadays, everybody calls him Rome, even his parents.

I started calling our pressman named Jereme "Germs" and that's stuck.

[TeeEye7]

Those having older siblings understand the torture experienced by us younglings:

When I turned 17, my brothers started calling me by my first name (Tom), then adding "17" to the initial of my middle name "B", and then our surname. "B-17" became my new middle name. That transformed into "Tommer the Bomber" or just "Tommer Bomber" as a nickname. As you can imagine, my middle name (or initial) changed when I became 24, 25, 26, 29. etc., etc. years of age (and continues....).

BTW: I guess the nickname is somewhat prophetic as I am trained in post-bomb blast crime scenes.....who'da thunk it?

[sonofsokol]

I thought of a couple more. I had a friend named Scott and we called him Scutt which is a combination of Scott and Slutt.

TI's story remieded my of my younger brother, who is named Jeff. He had a speech impediment when he was really young, so if you asked him his name he would say his name was "Weffy." Even though he has long since outgrown the speech impediment, my older brother and I (and sometimes my dad) still call him Weffy or Weff. He doesn't like it, so it is particulary fun to do.

My brother has a friend that he calls "Gumdrop" and even though I've hung out with Gumdrop at my brother's house a few times I have no idea what his real name is or how he got the nickname.

My given name is Robert, but my parents called me Bobby throughout my childhood. I remember that the summer before eigth grade, I decided to go by Bob, so when people would call me Bobby, I'd say, "it's just Bob." This led to my friends calling me "Just Bob" for a while, but it didn't really stick. I am always interested to meet other Roberts and see if there is anything that influenced which shortened form of the name they chose to use, Rob, Robbie, Bob, Bert, etc... All of the other Roberts I knew growing up all went by Rob or Robbie. I never even considered going by Rob. Sometimes I wonder my life would be different if I had been Rob instead of Bob...

[InsaneJediGirl]

As for myself, I got called a lot of nasty things that cannot be printed here.

I went by "Gene" as a child 'cos my dad and I share the same name and my middle name is Eugene. The people who weren't being horrid called me "Gene-old" (like Harold, I guess?), "Bean" and "Machine".

Here at work, I go by "D". Well, my colleague Allison Hoffman calls me "D-Ho" and she's "A-Ho" to me. "Ho" is one of my favourite words. Oh, and Chrissy just came by and called me "Daleford". I forgot about that one. LOL

Ha, my mom will sometimes call me "J-Ho"...which I hated at first now its amusing. I didn't really have a childhood nickname, my grandma called me "Auti" (short for Autumn in her eyes I guess?) and that is about the only thing that has stuck to this day. Back in middle school,whilst learning about the Ottoman Empire, my friends thought it was cool to call me "Autuman Empire". Yeah, it was lame.

As for my brothers, being the oldest, making up nicknames for them is fun. I like to give them female nicknames, just because its a riot. The only name that has stuck though is calling my youngest brother "Bella".Now Mom even calls him "Bells" and not "Nick" half the time, so I guess it worked...