# Is referring to two people with the same name as Big XXX and Little XXX non-PC?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-referring-to-two-people-with-the-same-name-as-big-xxx-and-little-xxx-non-pc/846282>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [January 11, 2020, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-referring-to-two-people-with-the-same-name-as-big-xxx-and-little-xxx-non-pc/846282 "2020-01-11T21:08:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2020, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-referring-to-two-people-with-the-same-name-as-big-xxx-and-little-xxx-non-pc/846282/61 "2020-01-20T16:37:34Z")

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I was working on a project once with a Finnish guy named Mika. He was a good sized guy, 6’3" tall or so and 240 pounds. When another guy named Mika showed up on the job we started to call the new guy Little Mika. This kind of upset Little Mika, because he wasn’t little other than in comparison, he was in every respect average, or even a bit larger, but we already had a Mika, and we weren’t going to change his name to Big Mika in the middle of the job. There was some discussions and we ended up going with Mika for the large one and Regular Mika for the average one.

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**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2020, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-referring-to-two-people-with-the-same-name-as-big-xxx-and-little-xxx-non-pc/846282/62 "2020-01-20T16:39:15Z")

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> [@garygnu](#):
>
> Hockey player Joe Pavelski briefly got tagged with “Little Joe” due to playing with Joe Thornton who already had “Big Joe” and “Jumbo Joe.” Fans etc wisely decided that wasn’t there best nickname for a really good professional athlete. Along with “Pavs,” we wound up with “The Big Pavelski” playing off the movie _The Big Lebowski_.

When Pat Verbeek played right wing for the Rangers he was given the nickname “The Little Ball of Hate” to distinguish him from teammate Ray Ferraro, “The Big Ball of Hate”.

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