The Art of Nicknames

The world’s worst not-bad-enough-to-keep-you-from-missing-school-but-bad-enough-to-annoy-you cold had been raging in our house for over a month. One of my sisters was not being vigilant enough in wiping her nose and was grossing us out. In an attempt to improve this situation, my Mom began calling her Boogers Hang Down when she needed a tissue. Not ones to miss an advantage, my siblings and I have continued calling her this even though it’s not a problem now. With the desire to get revenge, she has been desperately trying to come up with counter-nicknames. She’s tried Fat Face, Fart Face, Pig Face, Fat Pig, and Talks-a-lot. She struck gold when she came up with Running Stream from the Nose for my sister who was still sick. This has now been shortened to plain old Running Stream. I have suggested to her numerous names for myself. The secret is to suggest any names you’d prefer she not call you, and she will never call you them, simply because she thinks you’d like it.

A while before the long, horrible cold incident, the yet-to-be-dubbed Boogers Hang Down embarked on a deal with me, which is usually a bad idea. Her hair is always a rat’s nest when she wakes up, so I had started calling her Bedhead. She was getting annoyed with me so I said she could call me Ernesto de Pantelonez if I could call her Bedhead. She agreed. The trick here was to burst into a smile whenever she called me Ernesto de Pantelonez. It took the fun out of the “mean” nickname for her, and she stopped calling me Ernesto after the second or third time. I’m still ruthless with Bedhead, and whenever she complains, I remind her of our deal.

The nickname thing has been in the family for a while. In fact, my whole family is kind of crazy with nicknames. My dad especially has a long history of assigning people names. When he was a kid he gave everyone in his family “Indian names”. Though most of the names have been lost to time, my grandma’s was rather hard to forget. Buffalo Chip still tells us the story with wry humor. Nowadays, my dad has taken to calling her Baze. His brothers are Jed and Jay. Harold T. Bajarold, Peekerold, Lantern Waist, and Kerosene Lantern were all pet names he called me. He still calls me them occasionally, but most of them have been transferred to my younger siblings. A long time friend of the family calls me Beula and one of my cousins calls me Carlisselle. Another of my cousins has been yoked with the name Abignail, a con artist from the movie Catch Me if You Can. I think I originally gave it to her when she was explaining how she could finagle herself into a sleep-over if she forgot to mention a few details to certain people. I decided to give my little brother the nickname Little Bilbo. It just kind of popped out. Trend setter that I am, several other members of the family have also taken to calling him Little Bilbo or Little Bil for short.

With our history in name making, many more names are sure to follow, and you can put your names into history, too. I’d love to hear your favorite nicknames, and my sister would love to hear of a worthy name for me to rival Boogers Hang Down.

-Summer