I was looking up some baseball names/nicknames and noticed that some have fallen out of favor. For example, there hasn’t been a “Tex” in Major League Baseball since 1962 and a “Red” since 1973.
So my question is actually twofold: Where did the nicknames “Tex” and “Red” come from, and where did they go? That is, when did they fall out of favor in the general public, and why?
I know a Red. He has red hair. All Red’s I’ve ever met have red hair. I don’t know any person always called Tex, but people do still call other’s Tex in Wisconsin when the person wears a Cowboy hat.
In general, nicknames have fallen out of favor (other than shortened versions of the real name – Joe for Joseph – or standard substitutions for the name – Bob for Robert).
I only know one person who goes by a nickname rather than his real name. “Spike” for Mike. They really are out of favor, aren’t they. Probably due to the influx of special names, although you’d think it would work the other way:
“Your name is ‘Ryleie’? Screw that, you’re now ‘Slim’.”
Initials seem to have vanished as well. I remember as a boy, that many, many men about my grandfather’s age (WWII vet age) went by their initials- HC, JR, etc…
I have one friend who apparently is trying to bring back nicknames and initials single-handedly.
His real name is James, but informally, he’s “Rusty”, and professionally, he’s J.R.
Really? Everyone calls me “Slick.”
Is that good or bad?
Depends. Gimme back my wallet.
“Red” from red (or reddish) hair, goes way back (e.g., Eric the Red). “Tex” probably originally from being from Texas, evolved into some relation with the American West and/or cowboy culture.
When my fellow golfer makes a 7 or 8 I like to say, “nice shootin’ Tex.”
Everyone calls me “water lilly”
Oh wait a minute, that’s just the voices in my head when I forget to take my anti-crazy pills
I worked with several guys that went by their nicknames (including myself).
We had the following:
Red
Punk
Spud
Magnum (me)
That’s all anybody ever called us there…
It must be regional and cultural. I see rural kids and inner city kids getting more nicknames than others.
Is this one of those things like calling the big hulking guy “Tiny”?
NY Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira is nicknamed “Tex,” although that’s a pun on his last name since he grew up in Maryland.
Co-workers at two different jobs gave me the same nickname. However, they never said it to my face. Does that count?
Just a WAG, but before WWII probably 75% of the country lived in what’s now called the Rust Belt. People from the South were exotic, and Texans even more so. Today it’s no big deal to encounter somebody from another part of the country, but then meeting a Tex was something special.
From what I’ve read a lot of the drop is **because **of special names. A century ago 50% of the population had one of the 10 (or 20 or whatever) most popular names. Today it’s only 10%. So if you had a team with five Michaels, six Joes, and seven Johns, you needed nicknames to tell them apart.
The homeless guys at the library call me Red, does that count?
My dad used to tell me never to play pool for money with anybody named Red, Slim, Fats, or a geographical location.
Not just teams, but families–families would have six or eight kids, meaning 40 or 50 cousins, and half of them were named after the same saints or grandparents. Pretty soon the five Josephs would be Butch, Chip, Skip, Spec, and Scooter.
My nephew, 8, goes exclusively by his first and middle initials. CJ.
The last place I worked at they used to call me “Giant Penis That All The Women Want.”