Tuesday 8 May 2012

What's my name?

A great post over at Kolley Kibber set me thinking about nicknames recently.  I had a friend whose slim limbs and bony joints earned her the soubriquet Beanpole, and no matter how many Curly Wurlys or Freddo bars she ate, to everyone else’s chagrin she stayed as skinny as one.  At the same time, a classmate of rather more generous proportions was affectionately referred to as Podge. She took to this quite happily as a term of endearment and the name endured - I could never actually think of her as Caroline.  It has to be said too that this being in the olden days meant she was one of very few chubby pupils in the entire school and the body type which merited such a ‘fattist’ term then might perhaps be considered quite average now. 

For a short while I was rather unkindly called Pasty Face which I understand was a reference to being an insipid looking twelve-year-old with a complexion the colour of wallpaper paste, rather than resembling a Cornish meat and potato dish.  And Goldilocks seems quite sweet now, but at the time I didn't take it well, maybe it sounded too babyish.  Before that, my first name was conveniently tweaked a little to turn it into an unfashionable and slightly comical-sounding boy’s one. I didn’t like it but just learned to take it on the chin.  At least it was better than my young German neighbour’s nickname, Spaz, which, for all its un-PC-ness, was simply a contraction of Sebastian.

Fast forward to my mid-teens and down at the local music venue, which became the centre of a thriving punk scene in the late seventies, there were very few people whose real full names I ever got to know, even though I’d see them there at least once a week.

The punk world was perfect for spawning some memorable monickers, especially useful for those who played in a band. So we had Anarchy and Chunky (no relation to Podge) in one, and Stringy, Snout and Bondage in another.   Less evocative-sounding and of unknown origin, but still inextricably linked to their owners, were the names Milky, Till and Dim.  And for anyone reading this who knows the poetic output of one Attila the Stockbroker I can reliably inform you that back then he was Basil Boghead. 

Then again musicians and singers have been using handy epithets for decades.  Iggy Pop has so much more of a ring to it than James Osterberg, Twinkle far more exotic than Lynn Ripley. 

I didn’t expect to be using anything other than my given name later on in life – it just seemed to be something you grew out of.   And then this internet business changed all that.  At least we get to choose our own.


15 comments:

  1. I was always "Bugsy" in the family - or "Bugerlugs" - no idea my Dad just always called me it. My brother continued until well into my 20s - I remember someone asking him once somewhere what he'd just called me and I was definitely married by then.

    I was for a while "The Fish" - where I worked everyone had a nickname. That was coined by my boss who said "He swims like one and drinks like one". My desk which was a bit tucked into an alcove was called "The Fish Tank"...

    Many many moons ago - I was briefly in a little jam band called Dave Guff and the Farts - but I wasn't Dave Guff... just a Fart

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    1. Funny how some childhood names can just develop for no apparent reason and then stick for years!Love that about you being "just a Fart"! I have to wonder what the band sounded like...did it include a trumpeter? ;-)

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  2. Very interesting post, C. We had kids called all sorts at school - off the top of my head - 'Bogey', 'Toer','Busher', 'Fatty' (inspired), 'Chewitts', 'Linky', 'Chalky', 'Pugsley' - my own nicknames were truly dull so I won't bother you with them here. My kids never seem to refer to their friends in such terms - have they died out? Very nice Attila The Stockbroker story.

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    1. Thanks, SB - wow those are really classic-sounding school nicknames, very Beano and Dandy! Yeah, I wonder if they've died out now...and if so, why?!

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  3. During my college years I was 'Prairie Dogg' because one day someone stuck a Aussie style cowboy hat on my head. During that time I was also known as 'PD' or 'Dogg.' Now people I have met through my blog often call me 'Monkey.' I'm fine with both.

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    1. Ah, there seems to be an animal fixation thing going on there, Dr MVM (or should I call you Dogg, Monkey....etc...?!)

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  4. I'm racking my brain trying to figure out what your given name must be! Fascinating.

    In my time I have clocked up chums who would (for a while at least) answer to the names of 'Discharge', 'Chron', and 'Phlegm'. I'm assuming they've now reverted to Mark, Phil and whatever Phlegm's real name was..

    Hope you'll be glad to hear that Atilla is still strutting his stuff from his base in Southwick, just a couple of miles along the coast. And he's still very much Atilla!

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    1. Haha, I won't be revealing my real name here any time soon!
      Oh those punk names are perfect, Kolley - so attractive...
      And thanks for the update on Attila! My formative years were spent frequenting that little music venue where the Newtown Neurotics (before they dropped the Newtown bit) pretty much cut their gigging teeth; Attila (or Basil..) was often there and sometimes supported. I have a vivid memory of a poem he did about a dead cat. All good fun!

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  5. There's only one person in my life that I associate with nicknames...my Mamma.

    Her Daddy called her punk...that's who she was to him. Even in the most serious conversations...my Grandma's health or whatever...she was punk.

    Every once in a while, for whatever reason, he called her Nancy. Which was all the more jarring because to the rest of the world outside his house she was Wendy. She and her cousin surfed at the Beaches in Jacksonville on Wednesday...she became Wendy.

    I've never heard my Daddy call her Nancy.

    I never really thought about it but...I think it says something that wackiest person I know has never wanted to be called by the name she was given.

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    1. Ah that's really quite strange - to spend a life being known as any other name than one's real one! So... you never had a nickname yourself, e.f.??

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    2. My wife and sister have a few that I won't dignify by repeating.

      They call me Mr. Wonderful at work because I talk so much trash about my exploits on the road...I don't sell chicken wings in juke joints. I make people's lives more delicious...haha

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  6. In or around 1981, I and a group of friends were visiting a chum at Durham University. At the tail end of a VERY drunken evening we decided to write a postcard home to another buddy who couldn't make the trip. We dutifully passed the card to each other to add our own line of illegible scrawl and then round again for us to add our names at the bottom. I added an approximation of my name and handed it on, barely able to sit upright by this stage. The next guy took a look at what I'd written and burst out laughing,'....FAT KEN....!' he screamed! This, apparently is what my handwritten parting pleasantry and name looked like to him in his sozzled condition! At which point everyone dissolved into the kind of hysteria that only considerable inebriation can induce.

    Needles to say, for the last 30 years or so, to a small group of individuals, I've been known as Fat Ken!

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    1. Oh,that's a great story, erm...'Fat Ken'!
      I must say I also find myself questioning the origins of the name 'The Swede'?!!

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  7. Anarchy, Chunky, Stringy, Snout, Bondage, Till and Boghead - there's some names from the Triad. Just came across your blog. How you keeping ?

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    1. Hi!
      Thanks for commenting - I never expected anyone to read this who might actually know who those names belonged to!
      Yes, keeping fine thanks - hope you are too, and enjoying life in Ireland.

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