I’ve had a few: Sugar Boy (from when I was a wee lad in my highchair and, left briefly unattended, helped myself to a nearby sugar bowl; it’s also the name of a character in Warren’s All the King’s Men), Precious Perfect (from my older sister’s sarcasm), Funky Boy (wordplay based on my actual name), Word Man (when friends in high school knew, pre-Google, that I was a pretty good vocabulary source), Anal Boy (a joke by a friend about my nitpicking tendencies) and Willigum (a mispronunciation by my very young niece which stuck), off the top of my head.
Spitz. In 1974 I was at a park. A classmate’s little brother was goofing around and fell into the lake. I happened to be standing there, so I reached down and pulled the kid out. My arm got wet and my knees were muddy.
The kid ran to his brother in tears, told him he almost drowned but I saved him.
The classmate was a very popular, cool kid. He immediately added crazy details to the story and nicknamed me Spitz, because I swam out and rescued his brother, giving CPR, etc. Jim and I became friends and the nickname stuck until 1976 when we graduated highschool and moved on.
I just now did a search for my classmate. He was a cool kid and it would be interesting to get together for a beer. I found him on Find-A-Grave. He died in 2009, age 51.
When I was a kid, my father called me “Michelob” – my name is Michael, and that happened to be a beer he liked. (I blame the fact that this was Wisconsin for all of that. )
When I was in high school, my classmates nicknamed me “Pistol Pete” (the nickname of basketball player Pete Maravich), as it rhymes with my surname.
For most of my youth, I was Mickie. When I was 19 and in the Navy, I dated a guy who didn’t do nicknames, so I stopped using it and haven’t used it since then. It took a while to break my family, but they finally got used to me going by my given name.
A year later, assigned to my first squadron, my team leader brain-farted on my name, and referred to me as Fred, and for the next 2 years, I was Fred.
The only nickname I’ve ever had was sophomore year of high school - “Muscles”
At the time, I was 4½ feet tall, maybe, and weighed less than 70 pounds. So no muscles to speak of.
One of my electives was improv acting. A very early activity was introducing ourselves with our name and an alliterative descriptor. When my turn came I blanked just long enough for an upperclassman to do it for me with “Muscles-[my real name].” Despite the mockery, I played into it and the name stuck in that class.
That same guy and his friend happened to share both improv and geometry classwith me. They started calling me Muscles there, and suddenly I was Muscles everywhere.
It was awesome. It brought notoriety, and my social standing went from being invisible to everybody knowing me. It lasted until we moved to a different state halfway through junior year. Lots sucked about that move, but losing my nickname still stings.
My father called me “Bunky” for many years. I never thought about it before, but now I wonder where he came up with that name and why he called me that. It doesn’t rhyme or have any association with my real name. I should have asked him while he was alive. Now, it will forever remain a mystery.
It may have been from a comedy routine, “The Old Philospher,” by Eddie Lawrence, some versions of which have the line, “Is that what’s bothering you, Bunky?”
Now that you mention it, we had a couple The Old Philosopher 45s and I recall “Is that what’s bothering you, Bunky?” being one of the lines. Plus, Dad liked those records. I believe you have solved the mystery.
In grade school I stepped on dog poop, so for a short time in grade school I become Doo Doo Boy and it was Doo Doo Boy and She She (pee pee) Girl
She She Girl was a sad story that I’ve posted about before. She would pee herself in class and reportedly pull down her underwear behind the cafeteria for the guys. She disappeared midway through the school year. Looking back, she was probably sexually abused. Sorry Camille.
I feel deprived. I can hardly think of any nicknames I’ve had. Though I do recall one. I think it was probably in junior high. A couple of the jocks called me “prof”, because I was sort of the class geek, complete with nerdy glasses (but alas, no pocket protector) who liked to challenge the teacher with provocative questions in science class. I suppose there are worse things that jocks could do to a nerdy geek than call him “prof”, so I was OK with it. I think possibly I got on their good side because my geeky questions seemed to give the teacher a hard time, and the jocks enjoyed that!
In elementary/junior-high: “Butterball”. Mockery of my ability and skill at ball sports. I haven’t improved much.
Early twenties: “Scarface”. Bad accident at work, unconscious, lots of blood. When I came to, I was concerned I’d have a big scar on my face. My co-workers on the rig started calling me that as an attempt at levity as I was stretchered away. When I returned a month later, they cheerily yelled “Scarface is back!” when I got off the helicopter. It stuck with me on offshore rigs, but didn’t follow into corporate life. FTR: No visible scars from the incident.
I have a friend who wanted a facial scar. He went to a tattoo shop that offered scarification. He told me it was extremely painful. Three or four years have passed and it’s barely recognizable.
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You’re welcome!
I think possibly I got on their good side because my geeky questions seemed to give the teacher a hard time, and the jocks enjoyed that!