Is there something about email and the internet that makes self-nicknaming different now?
[T]he process of acquiring a nickname was changed by the advent of e-mail in the 1980's, when users had to create their e-mail handles."Handles"? You're making it too easy to remember the CB-radio craze of the 70s. I think self-nicknaming goes back a little farther. But it you trace it back too far, it will seem less trendy. Possibly even hopelessly dorky.
GEORGE: Well, Jerry, I been thinkin'. I've gotten as far as I can go with George Costanza.
JERRY: Is this the suicide talk or the nickname talk?
GEORGE: The nickname. George. What is that? It's nothing. It's got no snap, no zip. I need a nickname that makes people light up.
JERRY: You mean like...Liza!
GEORGE: But I was thinking...T-bone.
JERRY: But there's no "t" in your name. What about G-bone?
GEORGE: There's no G-bone.
JERRY: There's a g-spot.
GEORGE: That's a myth.
George takes a bite of his sandwich and gets a piece stuck to his chin.
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My dad was from the south and grew up in the 1930s and '40s when nicknames were king. Growing up we'd hear him talk about all sorts of people hardly ever using their real names. The nicknames were most often based on some physical defect, so maybe it's a good thing we're giving ourselves nicknames instead of relying on others. Some examples:
-- Jackrabbit Roberts
-- Carbide (he was formerly something else, but then he got his face somewhat disfigured after blowing something up in a can)
-- Hogeye
I'm sure more will leap to mind.
I was a kid (under 10) in the Chicago of the 1940 and I can assure you every kid was tagged with a nickname by his friends. In my case, with a last name of "Zerkel". "Zerk the Jerk" was a natural for the kids I didn't get along with, but my buddies taged me with "Kirks". There was a soap company in the midwest called Kirk's American Family Soap Co. Must of been founded by some ancient ancestor of James T Kirk. Anyway this soap compant made American Family Bar Soap for the kitchen sink and American Family Flakes for the ringer washing machine. Didn't like it but at least wasn't the "jerk" option, so I lived with it. Thankfully it died by the time I went to high school.
I do think that it is more a guy thing than a girl thing. I remember the scene in Animal House, where they were giving out nick names. Flounder didn't like his, but it sure stuck.
It wasn't quite that way in my fraternity. Rather, it was a lot more informal. Yet, by the time we graduated, almost all of us had them, and we still use them, some 35 years later. By now, they are clearly terms of endearment.
We did have nicknames for a lot of the women who hung around the house, but they weren't ever as good sports about it as we were - and within ten years of graduation would be mortally offended if you used their college nicknames in public.
What is funny is when I am in a group that includes some of them and some others, I go strickly by my nickname, and sometimes people there who don't know me are surprised when they find out my real name.
Another observation - it is almost as if the more nicknames you have, the more popular you are. One friend from the fraternity has at least a half a dozen by now, from high school, from the fraternity, from medical school, and now from the hospital where he works. So, it is a bit disconcerting at first in a mixed group when one group uses one nickname for him, and another uses another. But we catch on, and even start using the other nicknames.
Finally, my father's former senior partner, and the president of the S&L my father represented for almost 50 years and sat on the board for 40 was called "fuzzy" when he was an undergraduate. They would occasionally get calls into their office for that name, and my father though it humorous.
We did too. By the time we knew him, he was bald as a billiard ball, and would be over 100 if still alive.
Thanks Ann, for the link to the Seinfeld script. I was cracking up all morning about that and it made me think of George's other nickname, given to him by his gym teacher - Cantstandya. Haha
I think this is a regional thing.
In the Southg, at least where and when I grew up, every child, boy or girl, got a nickname. Each was called by his nickname until in his midteens when it would be supplanted by a real name (or possibly a new nickname).
It wasn't a sometime thing. It was invariable. The only variability was in what happened post-puberty -- one's real name or a new nickname.
Hootie
Nicknames are pretty prevalent in sports still. I played ball for a couple years with a guy that I only knew as "Stinky" and "PigPen" before I found out his name was actuallly Mike. He was a really clean guy but had uncooperative hair and a permanent 5 o'clock shadow, so he always looked filthy... 15 years on, he's a successful doctor, and still known as Stinky. He doesn't seem to mind.
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