Our neighbor’s nickname is Chip. He was named after his dad, but they called him Chip and it stuck. He’s in his 30’s.
This is actually one of my pet peeves. My BIL’s name is Ray, and his son is also Ray. Everyone in my husband’s family calls him “little Ray” except for me. Come on! The kid is 12 now. How many years will he have to be referred to as “little Ray”? When my husband refers to him by that name it makes me crazy.
His family also calls uncle John, Johnny, cousin Tom, Tommy, Uncle Jim, Jimmy - you get the idea. Every. single. relative. never loses their childhood moniker.
“Scooter” is a great name if you’re contemplating committing heinous criminal acts.
Never trust anybody with a cutesy, innocent sounding nickname. They’re hiding their true natures.
That’s why all those stone-killer mob guys have cute names, like “Baby-face.”
Anybody with a real tough sounding nickname is a creampuff. Anyone with a cutsey innocent one is scary bad.
Not according to the piece on NPR I heard. Scooter got his nickname because as a little kid he used to scoot around the house on his backside instead of walking.
Stupid nicknames are at least a matter of choice (usually). What gets me are grown men with the legal names of little boys. Like our landlord, whose legal name is Ricky. (To his credit, he goes by his middle name, however.) Or a guy my mother knew whose legal first and middle names were Teddy Jack.
At least give people the option of choosing their own stupid nickname rather than inflicting it on them from birth!
Unfortunately I innocently named my kitten Scooter a few months ago. I thought it was a really great retro nickname for a boy-cat. I wasn’t aware of the infamous Scooter at the time.
My dad’s sisters used to call him Jeffy. Drove him nuts. And yes - this was when he was in his 30’s. I think they’ve stopped now. Either that, or it just doesn’t register for me anymore.
I don’t trust the Rizzuto story either, especially if it came from Libby. The man is so secretive that apparently he doesn’t even tell people what “I.” stands for. The Washington Post concluded it’s probably Irv, but might be Irving or Irve. Unless we have a story about the nickname that comes from his parents…
It took me almost a full academic year to do it, but I finally broke my law school friends of calling me ‘T-Bone.’ Most of them are just calling me ‘Tom’ now.
We’ve nicknamed a particularly nerdy, busybodyish and annoying first-year student government rep ‘Scooter’ in the wake of the Libby affair. The aim is to bother him so much that he quits following us around and lecturing us on things that we’ve put more thought into than he has.
Incidentally, I know a fully grown man (he’s 34) nicknamed Scooter. I’m currently working on a freight crew at a grocery store, and he’s one of the leads on the crew. Scooter’s real name is Steve and as there are two other Steves working at the store (another on the freight crew and a front-end manager), it was necessary to nickname him. Evidently, Scooter was chosen as he “scoots around the store,” whatever that means.
Apparently his mother once called and asked for Scooter by his given name. Whoever took the call responded that no one by that name was working at the store, despite the fact that Scooter has been an employee there for more than 10 years.
That’s okay, I work with a guy everyone calls “Possum” and another guy who insists you call him “Baby Boy.” He’s roughly 6’ 2" and weighs in around 250 lbs.
Also answering to “Chub” was Charles Stoneham Feeney, an executive in the family business (New York/San Francisco Giants) before becoming the president of baseball’s National League.
