I grew up with a lot of sibling. It was required among the kids to have a nickname that made fun of their name (more or less). We had a little “song” that was a list of all of the names in order. I’m sure all of my siblings could repeat the song today.
Oddly enough, if I am reminded of the joke that people used to make about my last name these days, it’s actually something of a positive. I even kind of try to avoid bringing up the idea that I was ever offended. Because what really drives me up the wall is having my last name misspelled. And this particular joke, however lame it might be, does at least involve having the correct spelling in mind. I’ll take it.
My first name sounds like a major geographical landmark, and also a non-sexual body part. Yep, heard those variation, and laughed along with the kids who thought they had made it up.
When I was still working at the hospital, someone had a baby boy and gave him a name along the lines of “Charles Robert.” We joked that in 10 years (as in by now), kids were going to ask him, “How did you get a name like THAT?”
A couple of kids tried to make “Sam the spam” a thing. Spam-head was a term for a bald person. I wasn’t bald. Basically I was just baffled, not offended, and it wasn’t funny, so it never caught on.
That’s different, though, to laughing at someone’s name because it’s a foreign one that sounds funny in English. That’s the kind of thing you might laugh at privately once, because linguistically it’s funny, but then you get over it and never do it in front of them.
Some of these hints about names are like intriguing crossword clues. I’m not going to ask you to post your name in public though!
I don’t get the Charles Robert thing, I admit.
Braedyn, Zayhleigh, Aihva, etc. are going to ask what kind of name is Charles Robert.
Oh, I see. Nah, still tons of the old names around too, he won’t stand out in the slightest.
I had to look both of these up, never heard of them.
The tennis shoes look like tennis shoes, was it because they were not really spendy?
The Bugle Boy thing, jeans with elastic cuffs on them? I think I only saw those in break dancing videos. What advantage did they have over regular jeans? Just a fashion thing?
I think it’s just that, considering the sorts of names so many kids were getting 10 years ago, when the cre8tyv name trend was in full spin, Charles Robert was a outlier.
My 14-yr-old’s name is John, and we’ve met only two other kids named John his age in 14 years, plus maybe three or four Jonathans, two with cre8tyv spellings. Also two much younger Johns, one who was called Jack.
Which is a good reason why, in the UK, nearly all kids wear a uniform at school. There are also rules on jewellery, hair, and makeup.
Some parents would rather go without food than see their child bullied for not wearing the right brand of trainers.
My name is Michelle, but for years I went by Mickey, then Mickie. In elementary school, I had to endure Mickey Mouse on occasion. Actually, the worst was Michèle (spoiled brat) who thought it would be cute to give people nicknames. She tried calling me Richie, based on my last name, the girl whose last name was Snyder was called Snydley, and a few others I don’t recall. They never caught on - probably because most kids didn’t like her anyway.
I had a teacher who wanted to call me Mich, but he was a jerk and I was just in his class for a sort time.
When I was 19, I dated a guy who didn’t believe in nicknames, and because I thought I was in love, I decided to be Michelle again, and I’ve used it ever since. And apart from really bad renditions of the Beatles’ song being sung at me, or the occasional comedian who insists on “Michelle ma belle,” plus the fact that I’m old and grouchy, no one messes with my name.
My name, no.
But then we would trick people into using it in the Name Game.
Turns out it’s the name you can’t rhyme – at least, not on TV.
I occasionally got “Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater” or “Peter Rabbit” as a kid, but, luckily, it either wasn’t mean teasing, or I just didn’t give a shit and they gave up with the nursery rhyme name. As an adult I sometimes use it when people forget my name and call me Paul or Patrick. I just say “You’re one saint off, it’s Peter, like Peter Pumpkin Eater,” hoping the little joke and nursery rhyme imagery will jog their memory for the next time. Luckily, in school, it never got to the Peter = peter-meaning-penis, probably because that just wasn’t a common slang word for penis around here. It’s known, but sounds really old timey or just a bit forced.
We had a regular truck driver pick up where I worked who, due to his surly nature, decided his nickname was Mr. Grump. It was on his Facebook page and license plates. I immediately started calling him Forest Grump.
I don’t make fun of people’s names because there’s no way to come up with anything the person hasn’t heard before.
This rarely stops people, from my experience.
On several occasions I have commented on soneone’s name and made a creative reference they had never heard. But it’s a light-hearted thing, I lack a mean spirit. I probably would not say anything to someone I did not know fairly well.
For seven years I worked in a place where I was the guy next to the stairs, so I had to yell down to the receptionist to tell her that we had a proposal almost ready for her to send out.
Her name was Roxanne and I never once called “Roxxxxxxanne…” like Sting or Eddie Murphy. I’m still proud of my restraint.
…
John Finnemore portrays his interior monologues where he’s telling himself “Oh, here comes that guy named Dick. You know what’d be reeeeally funny, if I made a joke about that. I mean, who doesn’t like to have a laugh, and for the life of me, I can’t think of a downside. It’ll definitely brighten his day up. And I’m sure I can come up with a clever pun that he’s NEVER HEARD BEFORE…!”
(penis ensues)
When your classmates have names like:
Macadangdang
Larm
Batungbacal
Ichinose
Pacopac
Sniffen
Ah Fat
Dung
You soon get over the ‘funny name’ thing.
My name is about as vanilla, white-bread as a Minnesota church supper - not quite “John Smith”, but in the neighborhood - so I never really got teased for it.
What I did get, and still do, is people shortening my very common first name into its equally-common hypocoristic form (like William becoming Bill, or Charles, Chuck). And I cannot abide that name. So at work, I go by my one-syllable, impossible-to-shorten surname. But I still occasionally hear the other name.
This unlocked a nearly 30 year old memory. Does anyone else remember a Saturday Night Live skit from 1992 with Nicolas Cage & Julia Sweeny expecting a baby and discussing potential names? Nick has one outlandish reason after another rejecting various names (“No Peter, no Dick, no Rod!”). At the end, there’s a hilarious punchline from Rob Schneider. I can’t find a video of it to save my life but here’s a transcript:
SNL Transcripts: Nicolas Cage: 09/26/92: Baby Names - SNL Transcripts Tonight