Pink Buns
At a night-time beach party in high school, there was a stupid dare to go skinny dipping in the ocean. About 4 of the dudes lined up, dropped trou, psyched ourselves up (it was night time in December), heard the girls laughing behind our backs, then ran into the water.
When we got back and wrapped in towels, one girl said they were laughing because they noticed “all the other guys have normal pasty white butts, but Chock has little baby pink buns”.
She used the name for years, even after college. Mercifully, nobody else really picked up on it.
I never knew the story behind it, but I knew a woman whose actual first name was Alexandra, but, with one exception, everyone who knew her (including her first husband) called her Gugu. She was a first rate mathematician and for a while was married to Saul Bellow (who was the exception).
Yeah, my username- “DrDeth”. But it may be related to my prior work nickname- “DoctorDave” (not really Dave, but you get the idea), since I was the dude that kept a supply of aspirin, vitamins, and band-aids in my desk. “Hey DoctorDave, got anything for a headache?”
It became DrDeath after I had that rather short detail to help the coroners office with elder financial crime. I then used DrDeth as a character name in D&D.
I had a coworker who was called Dr. Death. He was a Navy Commander in the Pentagon, and it seemed that every program that was assigned to him ended up being defunded, so killed. (Totally unrelated, but he was one of the best storytellers I’d ever met, much in demand for retirement luncheon roasts. He even roasted me when I was transferred.)
i have a few …"wrong way " was one because everyone knew not to follow me or ask for direction because I rarely knew where I was going and some people called me “wrong” in a "that boy ain’t right " way
My mother’s given name was Harriet, but her whole family called her Pat. You see, she was going to be baptized Patricia until her dad called for a last minute change to Harriet. But because it was her mother’s name, everyone called her Pat. Mom hated being called Harriet.
Two of my nicknames have nothing to do with my given name, and two rely on my given name. It’s sometimes nice to have so many names to choose from.
Since my grandson was born, I’ve been called Boo. I never was before. I got the name from my daughter 'cause I’d approach the baby in the dark going “b-b-b-boo” ala Bing Crosby to let him know it was me. He’s now 21.
I was with a female friend one night who had a craving for pineapple. She had bought a can of it from the grocery store when we had made a snack run, but had no way of opening the can. So we swung by the house I shared with two coworkers of mine (we all worked at Toys R Us, so did the friend I was spending time with). I walked in with this big can of pineapple, opened the top with a can opener, and left without any explanation.
They were so perplexed by that, that they started calling me Pineapple. Not the most interesting story I guess, but it’s a true one.
My nickname within my immediate family was “Pookie”, after the lion puppet on the Soupy Sales show. We were big fans of the show, and I guess as a little kid I was fascinated with the Pookie puppet. So that became my nickname.
When my grandparents brought my dad’s younger sister home for the first time ~65 years ago, he (a toddler at the time) said something like, “That’s my sis!” To this day, she’s my aunt Sis.
A cousin once removed: Her given name was Gertrude but that was her mother’s name as well, so everyone called her Tootsie, a nickname I think she picked up as a baby who like to play with her toes.
My son: His group of friends in school tended to call each other by last name or gave each other nicknames based on their last names. They shortened our rather long last name to “Cos,” which morphed in high school into “Cosine.” Which always tickled me, being a mathematician.
Just like here on the SDMB, I’m known as “Spoons” in real life. I know why, and I won’t explain (again), but I’ve been known as “Spoons” for decades, and will respond to it as if it was my real name.
