In my 7th grade French class we had to pick a French name. I wanted my name in French but the person before me (with the same first name) picked the name I wanted. So, I had to pick a name basically at random. It was a variation of Peter. My nickname evolved from:
Peter, Peter Pan, Pan. The nickname of Pan stuck.
In about 7th grade, I decided I didn’t like my first name and wanted to go by my middle and last name’s initials. I informed my family, teachers, classmates. It didn’t last for a minute.
I guess I have a few similar nicknames some people call me at work but I can’t remember how it started. The first syllable is the same as my name but they sub in other stuff for the second. So if my name is Kevin, they might call me Keveenyo, Keveenee, Veenee.
On the first day of high school Physics class, we were going around introducing ourselves to the teacher. When we got to Rags, the teacher made a face and said he wasn’t comfortable with such an informal nickname and asked his real name. “Ragnar.” The teacher called him Rags.
I have a very common first name. There were four boys with my name in several classes, and I believe there may have been five in some situations.
In high school a number of other kids used to call me Truckin’. When I finally asked, I was told it had to do with my walk. I felt more resigned to the name (not that I cared much anyway) when I reflected that it was the modern equivalent of Strider.
A group of football players who were in the same anthropology class in college took to calling me Rudy. The name didn’t embarrass me, but I felt really dumb over how long it took me to figure out that it was inspired by how red my nose was.
As a child my mum had a Milk Bar or Cafe which had a Pool Room on the side. No, not a swimming pool, a room with 2 Pool tables, a juke box and some pinball machines. I worked there when I wasn’t at school and at about 9 the teens who used to inhabit the pool room christened me Casper, as in the friendly ghost, as back then as a kid in the 70’s I had a mane of white blonde hair and skin that was white as and wouldn’t tan.
In grade 5 I got anointed as Goober by one of the grade 6 kids which stuck all through high school.
As I was reliving old times, I came across this old nickname thread. Reading my post from then, I realized I’ve gained quite a few in the last 22 years. I was going to start a new thread but, being a good Doper, I decided to check for something more recent and came across this thread. So here I bring back my old names and freshen them up with some new ones.
Miss Amburger - I was a Parents Day Out teacher for a few years and one of my kids thought my name was Amburger. So Miss Amburger I became.
Sevti or Sev - I was in an online role playing game called Tazlure many, many years ago. Sevti was the character I played and, even knowing my real name, most of them still call me Sev.
Honeybunny - Verrain called me this when we were engaged. (I called him Snugglebunny.) The names were shared during our wedding because I didn’t realize that our priest was going to read directly from the “why I love him” thing he asked me to write. Yeah, we were getting bunnies for many, many years.
Shorty - Various friends over the years, because they think because they have a few inches on me that Shorty is funny.
Sweets - Verrain’s nickname for me, even now.
Amber Patient - This was more in someone’s phone than actually called it. He knew a lot of Ambers and since he met me when he was valet at hospital and could never remember my last name, I became “Amber Patient” (even though I should have been "Amber Visitor ".)
There are probably a lot more, but im getting old and my memory isn’t what it used to be.
I’ve written about this before.
I “made up” the nickname Dai ren 大人 in 2000 after I was the Cantonese movie Dairy of a Big Man (1988) starring Chow Yun Faat and Joey Wong Jyo Yin.
The name is nonsense because it’s a mix of the words for dai* (big) in Cantonese, Da in Mandarin and ren (person, man) in Mandarin, yan/jan in Cantonese. Something no one would actually do.
*I’m purposely not using diacritics for simplicity and don’t use the proper tone when pronouncing the words
However, in Mandarin the phrase dai ren 待人 and 歹人 (different tones for dai) means a rude (or crazy as I first learned it) or bad person. So when people ask me what Dai Ren means, I explain it started out as nonsense for big man, but only makes sense in Mandarin with a negative meaning.
It then learned that there’s a city/port in China called Dailan/Dailan 大連, formerly Port Arthur, but pronounced Dairen in Japanese during their occupation (I’m Okinawan/Japanese).
I no longer use the nickname, but privately chuckle at the negative connotations of what I thought up as a play on “Big man!”
When I was in Navy boot camp, my company commander assigned me to the position of company yeoman, a pretty sweet gig that got me excused from some of the more obnoxious chores. The guys all decided that I was to be known as “Radar.”
As the new guy on my first submarine, some of the older hands apparently thought it would be appropriate to bind my arms, then duct tape my legs together and suspend me upside down outside the maneuvering room. I disagreed, and when they first laid hands on me, struggled strenuously. Having a pencil in my hand, I flailed around and managed to stab one guy in the arm. My nickname after that was Norman (after Norman Bates), complete with Bernard Herrmann’s FWEE! FWEE! FWEE! sound effect.