I’ve been noticing for the past few years that nicknames have been going downhill. Formulas are applied for a nickname, like the first letter of a person’s name and the first syllable of their last name (Alex Rodriguez = A-Rod, Tracy McGrady = T-Mac, Chris Webber = C-Webb, Ivan Rodriguez = I-Rod*, etc.) are not viable nicknames. The worst nickname, and the current one I loathe the most is the nickname for Daisuke Matzusaka, the Japanese starting pitcher that the Boston Red Sox signed in the offseason. His nickname is “Dice-K”. That’s his nickname? His first name phonetically rendered? That’s it? What happened to Vinnie “The Microwave” Johnson, Cy Young (that’s not even his real name. “Cy” is short for “Cyclone”, for his delivery), Ted Williams, the “Splendid Splinter”
I was listening to NPR on my way to the gym this afternoon, and a guy came on, talking about this exact thing. Here’s Devin Gordon’s article on the decline of the great nicknames.
I agree, I hate those “first initial/shortened version of last name” nicknames, mostly because for some reason they sound fratty to me. Just thinking about it now, I get a mental picture of a guy in a white baseball cap turned backwards with a Keystone Light in his hand, shouting out “Yo! B-Mac! What’s up, bro!”
There’s no imagination to it! Gah. I’ve argued about this with one of my friends for a while. He ended up with a forced nickname of “Piglet” just to prove a point.
I’ve been complaining about this for years - of course, alas, I didn’t think to complain about it on the 'net until recently. It’s probably true that for every great name we remember, there were a bunch of “meh” ones that we don’t.
Chris Webber should have been called “Spider.” It’s too late now, but Spider Webber would have been really cool. C-Webb is blah to the nth degree. T-Mac sucks as a nickname, and he’s an exciting player to watch when his back isn’t acting up.
Somebody on ESPN noted that the top two picks in the latest NBA Draft kind of give fans a chance to start fresh. You can’t call Greg Oden “G-Ode,” you can’t call Kevin Durant “K-Dur.” So, with luck, somebody will come up with something creative. Like we could call Greg Oden “Thor” - get it, Odin, Thor? Big guy who throws down dunks and crushes shots? I won’t say it’s brilliant, but I hope it’s not awful - and it’s beats “G-O,” which will be his nickname if nobody on ESPN comes up with anything better. The list goes on: Al Horford won’t be “A-Ho”… well, maybe if he turns out to be a jerk… Mike Conley won’t be M-Con [maybe he’ll be Def-Con], Yi Jinlian won’t be Y-Ji or J-Yi, Joakim Noah won’t be J-No… in fact, I see very few “T-Mac” style nicknames coming out of that first round.
To be fair, though, the nickname isn’t totally dead. One of Shaquille O’Neal’s nicknames is “The Big Aristotle.” I think that goes on any Best Nicknames of All-Time list. Gilbert Arenas is “Hibachi” or “Agent Zero,” the latter of which is excellent. Iverson is “The Answer;” that’s not bad. Shaq called Dwyane Wade “Flash,” which beats the more popular “D-Wade.” LeBron James is, unfortunately, called LBJ by some people, but he has other good nicknames, like “King.” Rafer Alston is “Skip 2 My Lou” from his streetball days. Wikipedia says Dwight Howard is called “Thunder.” I don’t know who calls him that, but if some more people did it, that’d be great.
It’s not the kids, it’s the sportswriters. The kids can call an athlete anything, but the sportswriters cast them in stone. I think Chris Berman so abused* the standard nicknaming conventions that they’ve gone in a whole different direction.
*See: Eric “Sleeping With” Bienemy;
Kurt “Be Home” Blyleven.
I’m anti-“Big(anything)” nickname. Big Hurt, Big Unit, Big Papi…blah!
Berman was cute for about 5 minutes. Then you wanted to kill yourself for thinking that about those 5 minutes.
Also, Shaq called Mr. wade “Flash”, but it really didn’t stick much. People still cling to “D-Wade”. He’s such an overrated player anyways.
I kind of miss the days of O.J. “The Juice” Simpson (regardless of his post-football doings), William “The Fridge” Perry, and Tom “The Terminator” Henke. And others with real nicknames. As kids, we had nicknames just as descriptive: Ballet Byng danced through the defensive line, Boots was the kid with the weird shoes that didn’t slow him down, Clue was the kid who somehow just knew what to expect from the QB. These names were descriptive; much more meaningful than “A-Rod” or “T-Mac.”
As an aside, I’d like to know whoever came up with “T.O.” for Terrell Owens. “T.O.” has always meant the city of Toronto, Ontario. Hearing that “T.O. scored on Sunday” makes me think that a Toronto team (Blue Jays, Argos, Maple Leafs) scored something. Terrell Owens isn’t even considered when I (and many others) hear “T.O.”
I was going to comment that I think nicknames are juvenile (the one thing Bush enlightened me about), but I don’t want to be saddled with “Fuddy Duddy” for the rest of my days on The Dope.
Political correctness has destroyed many nicknames, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Names reflecting a player’s racial background, his national origin, his personal appearance and especially any peculiar physical traits (think Mordecai “Three Fingers” Brown) would be unacceptable today.
I grew up in an era of great sports nicknames; Dick “Night Train” Lane, Elroy “Crazylegs” Hirsch, “Tank” Younger, (Yeah, I was a Rams fan) And PeeWee Reese, Preacher Roe, Shotgun Shuba (yeah, a Dodgers fan, too).