One of the characters on The Wire went by the street name Wee-Bey. More details about his character can be seen at
and
http://www.hbo.com/the-wire/cast-and-crew/roland-wee-bey-brice/bio/roland-wee-bey-brice.html
Have you ever known a Wee-Bey? Anybody with a similar name?
Any idea where such a nickname would come from? What it must mean?
Okay. At this point, 51 people have bothered to view this thread and none have felt the urge to reply. So I will. Just to explain why I started the thread if nothing else.
I have tried searches to locate any explanation for Wee-Bey’s name and where it comes from. No luck. I’m hoping somebody has an idea worth floating or a name similar enough to suggest how that nickname came up.
If other peculiar nicknames, probably stemming from baby or childhood names provided by siblings, come to mind, please share them.
I knew a guy in high school who was still going by Baba (pronounced Bay-bay) which supposedly had been with him since the cradle.
A colorful father I knew of many years ago nicknamed all his children this way:
Doodie
Chick
Neensy
Bloss
And every on of those kids carried those names into adulthood.
Other high school nicknames I knew of that might rival Wee-Bey include:
Pookie
Tater
Feets
Dink
Gator
Surely you’ve known grown-ups with names that are still with them from childhood, right?
What are some of the more colorful ones?
Well, his first name is Roland, so no help there. Maybe it’s tied to his father’s name, like Little Bey.
I’ve searched all over for the source of Wee-Bey’s nickname. Nada. Some interesting guesses, like maybe it started as Wee-Babe (from his mom), or that the “Bey” has something to do with his love for tropical fish. Wee fish from bays. Nah. We’ll never know.
No interesting nicknames among my friends and relatives. My brother was Doc for awhile, for no good reason. There were a couple of Butches in school. A friend named Marilyn became Sam, when she was an adult, but no one knows why.
I’ve even wondered if EBay has anything to do with it.
And those little kids’s toys. Weebles.
Bey is a Turkish term for a chieftain. And there was/is an actor named Turhan Bey.
According to Wikipedia, he is named after a man known as “Bey-Brother.”
Bey is Turkish for “chief,” and a common title or nickname among Farrakhan-style Black Muslims, which is a popular jailhouse faith. Perhaps the original Bey’s name is so derived.
At this point I think we’re mainly just discussing nicknames, etc., more than the actual TV show alluded to in the OP, so I’m leaving this here for now rather than move it to Cafe Society.
Subject to deciding differently later, depending on how the thread develops, of course.
The Wiki page you linked to says it’s a reference to Vernon “Bey-brother” Collins, a highly feared enforcer in 1980s Baltimore. Nobody seems to know where Collins got his nickname, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a contraction of “baby brother.” Sources seem silent on how the show’s creators came to tack “Wee” on there.
“Bey” is also used by adherents of the Moorish Science Temple.
I hadn’t noticed that part of the Wiki article until you pointed it out. Thanks. I do believe we have the source. “Baby-brother” becoming “Bey-brother” makes good sense. And “Wee-Bey” as a way of referring to Bey-brother for a younger (or smaller) version is also very likely.
Can anyone provide other variations beside “Wee-” or “Lil-” as a means of creating a diminutive of another name?
ETA: Thanks to Richard Parker for seeing the same thing.