Frog (or Froggy) is a guy I worked with for several years. He was given that name by a friend as a child, named for a character in a children’s show. He thought it was pretty neat that he’d had the same nickname for all those years.
I remember in summer camp one year many many moons ago, we had a kid who got dubbed “Bookman” after the Good Times super. This eventually got shortened to “Booker” and then corrupted to “Booger.” When his parents came to pick him up, they asked me why everyone called him Booger. I said I didn’t know, 'cause I wasn’t sure if they’d take offense at the “Bookman” nickname or not. But yeah, weird origin for that one.
Chalk up another “Tiny” over here (6’3" 350lbs). He also goes by Keith, which is odd because his real name is Dennis. He’ll answer to any of the three names.
My daughter is known as Shoebox.
Mine was Potsie, because I have the same last name as the Happy Days character.
I knew a “Kip” whose real name was Darrell. He was Darrell, jr., and was called “Skippy” as a little kid. When he got older, he became “Skip,” but he thought that still sounded like a little kid’s name, so in high school, he tried to get people to call him “Darrell,” but it didn’t catch on, so he went with “Kip,” because it sounded better than “Skip.” To him, anyway.
I knew a Charles who was “Chuck” to his family, and in school, he was “Chuckles.”
I knew a Peter who for some reason was Chico. He wasn’t Hispanic at all.
There was a Hungarian kid who went to my school who had a name that was unpronounceable to most Americans, so he picked a random “American” name for himself to be known by in the US-- Blaise. He’s only one of two Blaises I have ever known in the US, and the other was Cajun.
Speaking of Cajun, there was a Cajun woman in my Basic Training unit, and she had a five or six syllable last name, so she got called “Cajun.”
There was an older woman in my unit, about as old as you could be, and be in basic (34, or 36). Her nickname was “Mom.”
We had three Rodriguezes in my unit, so one was “Roddy,” one was “Reed,” and one was “Gus.”
I knew a man named Carroll married to a woman named Carol. The man went by Gus. I have no idea why. I also knew a “Constantine” who went by Gus. His grandson, who is named after him, goes by Dino. He has a cousin named Socrates, which if you are actually Greek, is pronounced so-CRAY-tees. He goes by Soc. Pronounced just like “Sock.”
I knew a man named Ishmael who went by Dick. Not especially funny, except he married a woman named Jane. They were Dick & Jane for 61 years, until his death. She lived to play guitar duos with one of her great-grandsons. Died a few months short of her 99th birthday.
My husband had trouble finding work when he got back from Iraq, and for 8 months, he drove a bus. Once he got cut off by a truck, and ran over a stopsign to avoid hitting a pedestrian. He didn’t get into trouble, because there were lots of witnesses, but his nickname at work was “Stopsign” thereafter.
I know a William Kenneth who comes from a family where all the first born sons are named William. So Willie, Billy, and Liam got used up fast, as did all the claims to “Junior,” and “Trey,” and such, so because his middle name starts with a K, he became “Wik,” although eventually, he started spelling it “Wick.”
That’s all I can think of now.
You just told a joke that every Seabee knows, probably without knowing it yourself. One of the Seabee ratings is EO (Equipment Operator). They’re not always the brightest bulbs in the pack, so the joke goes: The only thing lower than an E-1 is an EO. A variation on that is “He went to Captain’s mast and was busted down to EO.”
I’ve known a Shank, so named because as a teen, he had no access to a car, so he always said that he was traveling via shank’s mare. I’ve also known an Ozark (given name of Kenneth) who got that from a landlady who said he looked like the cartoon hillbillies from the Ozarks.
I used to work with a Thriller (real name: Michael Jackson) and a Pres (named John Adams). Another former co-worker was called Joe, even though his name was Robert. He was a National Guardsman and the name originated as GI Joe.
Living where I do and working among a lot of blue collar guys, there are some strange nicknames that I no longer even blink when I hear.
I knew a Madeline who was called JoAnne.
Long story to that nickname.
And…
I guy I knew, his gf had been married to an Italian and her daughter was Dago. Dago married a guy from Mexico and their son was Taco.
I had no idea what Dago’s and Taco’s real names were.
I don’t know how rare my nickname was–I know at least one other person in the world had it–but I was Jinx, kind of a mashup of my last name, from Grade Four onward to everyone but teachers and my parents. Even a couple of high school teachers got to calling me Jinx. The football and basketball coaches called me Jinx. After graduating, I moved to another city for college and was back to “Esox” until one day, a classmate called me Jinx, right out of the blue. It turned out he knew someone else with the same last name who was also nicknamed Jinx, so he tried it out on me. Word got around and I became Jinx all over again. It didn’t really leave me until my 30s.
When I was a kid my dad had a friend who everybody called Picky. I always thought it was odd and mentioned it to my dad. He told me his real name was Tom Pikulic but everyone had called him Picky and it stuck into adulthood.
Ezmo. My best friend in third grade. No one in her family could (or would?) tell me where it came from.
You see kids, this was about 25 years before “Elmo” made this sound almost normal . . .
My older brother was called “Scooter” growing up, but that was a fairly normal Virginia nickname at the time. . .
Heh. I’m from a long line of Army veterans, so not familiar with Seabee jokes. Glad that I accidentally made the right joke!
I honestly don’t know what my step dad’s rating was. Just that he served from about '63 until '68 and was aboard 2 ships that took part in the searches for the Scorpion and the Thresher. An old and dear friend who is a retired nuke found out, and asked my dad about the experience. “I don’t know. We sailed around looking for debris. Didn’t find a damned thing, but it was still better than staying home and working in the coal mines.”
And back to topic, for no creative reason whatsoever, my step dad’s Navy buddies called him HillBilly. (Given name William. From West Virginia.) And a few drinks apparently made the difference between “nickname” and “insult.” Thus the multiple captains masts, except for the one time he got busted down for selling black market cigarettes in Italy.
I knew a guy who went by Angelón, Big Angel; this surprised people, as he was very large. It was explained as a childhood nick. “What, used to be the smallest guy in the class?” “You got it!”
Two of my classmates were double cousins, born within days of each other, and with very common lastnames. They had exactly-identical names and were, not just in the same year and the same school, but in the same group. When they first joined the class, the teacher thought of asking to have one moved to a different group, but genetic randomness had been smarter than their parents: I think even their wives still call them Blonde and Blackhair.
I worked with a guy a few years ago who went by ‘Doc’. He had nothing to do with the medical profession, but his initials were D.O.C.
There was a gentleman in our area when I grew up whose nickname was “Dink”.
Yeah, I knew a guy whose first name was Monroe, and he went by Dink as well. No idea what the origin of it was. This guy was probably born in the late 1920s or early 30s. I know of the word dink being used as a racial slur, but I don’t know if that was related. This guy was a white Midwesterner, FWIW.
I’ve known a Crackers, a Froggy, and a Zilla. I only know what one of them is actually named.
Worked with someone the boss called “Killer” a few times. No idea if everyone called him that. It was because his network login name looked similar to “Killer” even though it wasn’t his last name.
Doesn’t fit the OP question, but cool nickname nonetheless.
mmm