Nicknames

 Nicknames. Ugh.

How do we get 'em? How do you get rid of 'em?

I've collected a few in my lifetime. Most have gone by the wayside, thankfully. Many have been really, really dumb, in my opinion. But you don't get to have a say in your own nickname.  Is that fair? First, your parents name you when you're a newborn. Obviously, you don't have anything to say about that.  And then before you know it, people begin to call you by other names of their own choosing.  As if the one you were baptized with wasn't good enough. 

In the spirit of full disclosure, I will share some of my nicknames. Not to resurrect them, but just to make a point about the unfairness of it all. 

First of all, I want to say that your nickname has more to do with who gave it to you than it does with you. Some folks may disagree and that's fine. People can disagree with me all they want. That doesn't make 'em right. 

The first nickname I can recall was "Ardy." That one was fair. Not much of a bastardization of the name there. In fact, I remember thinking that my family had realized their mistake in naming me "Ardys" and were trying to make the best of it by changing my name just a little. I was embarrassed about my name, "Ardys" until I was in my thirties. Heck, maybe even yet in my forties. "Ardy" has been a long-standing nickname. I still have friends who call me by that nickname.

There are nicknames that are only used by certain people. Sometimes only one person. Take "Radish" for example. My sister, Lou gave me that one when I was quite small. I have no idea why. Did I resemble a radish in some round, perky, biting way? Was she trying to have fun with the letters of my name and that was the best she could come up with? Hard to say. 

My mother called me "Misskaterriann." (pro. MISS-kah-TAIR-ree-ANN). I don't know how to spell it. Never seen it in writing, so you'll have to do the best you can with it. If someone reading this has heard this nickname before and you know how it is spelled, please tell me. Perhaps it's a word my mother made up. If so, that makes me like it a little better. And to think that I encouraged that kind of creativity? But what does it mean? In context, I suspect it means something like "little trouble-maker." In spite of that, she was usually smiling when she used it. On the other hand, my mother didn't spend a lot of time frowning so it's hard to say what her true meaning was.

"Squirt" was a popular nickname for a time. Popular with my brother, that is. I suppose it's short for the phrase "You Li'l Squirt" which to me, means something entirely different from just plain "squirt." "Squirt" puts me in mind of a liquid that accidentally shoots someplace you hadn't planned on having it go.  Or, even worse than that, a bodily fluid produced when your stomach has been feeling queasy. At the grave risk of indelicacy, it is used in the expression "so and so's got the squ***s.  Now really, who wants to have that for a nickname?

"Aardvark" was one that I was given in high school, believe it or not. Aside from that nickname, I'd always thought the giver was a close friend of mine. But to call a friend by a name that clearly involves an extremely long nose and eating ants? Well, it makes a person stop and think.

A friend in my thirties gave me the nickname "A.J." (Back when my last name was Jennings). Frankly, I felt rather good about that nickname. When your nickname is your initials, I think that puts you in good company with people like B.B. King, T.S. Eliot, J.R. Tolkien, J.F.K., C.S. Lewis, B.J. Hunnicut, C.J. Cregg, k.d. lang, e.e. cummings, J.D. Salinger, H.G. Wells, J.K. Rowling...I could go on and on, but I'm sure you'd prefer that I stop. Suffice it to say, initials are cool. When a person is known by their initials, you gotta think, "wow, he/she is so well-known you don't even have to speak their name and people automatically know who you're talking about." 

Then there were the nicknames that attempted to flatter. "Ardys the Artist" was such a nickname. I didn't mind it so much. Just had to be glad my name wasn't "Merill (the Barrel)" or "Jane (the Plain)," or " "Kari (the Hairy)" or "Patty (the Fatty)" or worse, "Fitch (the B****)." 

Some nicknames are funny the second they leave your mouth. Like "Babe-a-saurus," for example. When a nickname makes you laugh out loud, the giver knows he's struck gold. This one struck me as hilarious. This was my translation, "You sexy dinosaur, you." Flat out one of the most ridiculous phrases I've heard in a while. Alternatively, "You ancient reptile."

Nicknames that are given to you by an offspring have their own special zing. Especially when your child gives you a nickname of someone that he says reminds him of you. And then when all your other children, stepchildren, spouse and in-laws agree, that nickname ain't goin' away anytime soon. You'd have to be an SNL fan to get this one. Remember the skit with Lorraine and Carl?  Ya, that's me apparently. I'm "Lorraine." Could a' been worse. 

The next and last one that I'm willing to share is more of a mantra, really than a simple nickname and it's a bit mean-spirited. Little boys are not known for considering the feelings of a fourteen-year-old girl cousin. I have yet to pay him back for the humiliation of it. In all fairness, though, I give him five stars for creativity. Two for rhyming and zero for scarring me for life. It went like this: "Ardys Retardys, Let a fartys. Blew it all apartys." Only a ten-year-old boy would come up with something so gauche. 

What nicknames have you been saddled with? How do you feel about your nicknames? If you could have picked your own, what would it have been? Please, let's hear about your nicknames in the Comments after this post.