Nicknames
Nicknames, where do they come from, what is their use and more...
Ever meet a "Tom" who just realy isn't a "Tom", he's more of a "Brian", it would be wierd to just change his name and start calling him Brian so instead you give him a nickname, lets say he likes hocky in kind of an obsessive way so you could call him "Puck" for instance.
Why Puck? Why not?
Nicknames espeashaly with internet now adays, have become almost like new names for many people. I'm not talking about the nicknames we use on the internet, I was just pointing out that a lot of people use their real life nickname on the internet. The internet also gets you used to not being called by your birth name, it makes it seem normal to not use your real name which carries on out of the internet and into real life as well. I think just about everybody I know has a nickname and not just one you use every now and then, I mean nicknames that have totaly replaced their old name.
Faduh:
A friend of mine, we started calling him Faduh (it sounds better in hebrew), why? Well he's "silly" (some would call him harmlesly dumb but I know him better) and what better name could someone like that have if not Faduh? His real name is Iftach and trust me he's not an "Iftach". We started calling him Faduh sice about 9th grade and a LOT of people who have known him for years have trouble remembering his real name, even his parents call him Faduh! The origin of the name comes from "Fadiha lesahek ito cadur-regel" (Translation=It's embarasing to play soccer with him), now don't ask me how we shortened it down to only Faduh but hey it works!
A Different example...
Catcher:
We have a dear friend (we as in the regular group of kids I hang out with), he came to us in 9th grade and was introduced to us through Baseball. His part was being catcher, no one knew him so they called him catcher, 5 years later and half the people who know him don't know his real name. I think it's better that way, his real name really doesn't suit him at all, "Noam", it's just very NOT him. So to this day he is rarely called by his real name except for people who are embarrest to call him Catcher.
Here's one that I can take full credit for...
Daled:
Catcher came to us one day with a new girlfriend, she was nice, a bit different, she fit strait in with us. Only problem was that I had a hell of a hard time remembering her name, "Dafna", It was the most unexpected name for her and I don't know why I just couldn't remember it. At first I would ask her 2-3 times an hour but as she started hanging out with us more and more, I felt stupid asking her all time what her name was all the time. So I called her at first "the girl who's name starts with a D" and that felt just as stupid so slowly I just called her by the first letter of her name which in Hebrew is "Daled" and it stuck. A year and a half later and almost everybody who knows her calls her Daled.
Kroop:
There is also a "Nimrod" who we called by his last name untill we found we could shorten it and have a suiting name for him, "Kroop". The name is a must as far as he's concerned, he doesn't tell people his real name anymore after he found out what the word Nimrod means.
My Nicknames:
I had quite a few nicknames myself, my real name is Yosi, I hate it, it's such a typical name in Israel. About 1 out of 20 people in Israel are called Yosi. In 5th-8th grade I had 4 other Yosi's learning with me in the same class pluss I had a teatcher who taught me 4 times a week called Yosi. Highschool, I was in a bunch of classes but luckly they were 96% girls in most of them so there were no other Yosi's but the not so lucky part was that there were 4 important teatchers called Yosi working in school, so it was a name that was called out everywear I went. Eventualy I just ignored it when people called out my name, If they were really calling me then they'd call a second time, it wasn't a bad meathod but it wasn't foolproof. 11th grade I realy got screwed, my main teacher, the one who taught me the most subjects and was responsable for me and my fellow classmates, was called Yosi. That year I totaly blocked the instinct of turning when I heard Yosi, out of my system.
Now back to our subject, nicknames, I have had a bunch of attempts for nicknames people tried to fit me up with, Josh, Josie, Joe, Duglas (my middle name), Dug but the one that somehow stuck the longest was Jesus. A friend of mine pointed out one day that with long hair and a 2 weeks beard, I looked something like Jesus (I don't agree), he pointed it out to people and slowly they began to say that not only do I look like him but I am a Jesus like figure as well, always calm and peacful, never doing anything mean to anyone. Now that makes me out as a goody 2 shoos,I'm NOT! I have done my deal of trouble and older people defanetly didn't see me as a posative figure but I was good to my friends, I was just alway the peacmaker amoung friends, I was always loyal to freinds and I was a bit quieter than most. Anyway the nickname Jesus stuck and up untill today people ocashinoly call me Jesus and everything related to Jesus somehow feels like it has something to do with me. Like if someone starts talking about Jesus when I'm around then they'll say something like, "oh here's our Jesus" or if we happen to see a picture of Jesus everyone will say jomething like "hey Jesus" and turn to look at me. The nickname was fine, I used it on the internet, saving me the bother of thinking up a nickname, till a friend of mine discovered that with an Israeli accent it sounds like Chees-ass and then I got a not so welcomed nickname and even wors than that were all the Jesus freaks the nickname attracted to me, it was like a curse but luckly the Chees-ass faded away fast and I don't go by the nick Jesus anymore on the web. I actualy got my new nickname from a character in a story I wrote and it's a totaly unused name .Acrypt, it looks pretty good in my opinion and it sounds pretty good, for internet use at least, I wouldn't go around letting people call me Acrypt out of the internet.
So what have we learned?
Nicknames are meant mostly for people who either have very unfitting names, just don't like their names or are introduced to people with a name other than their own. There are people out there who have precicly the name that fits their character and they will most likely not ever have the privlage of having a unique nickname made out for them.
Something that I have learned from experiance with my friends is that people can be offended by their nicknames even if there's no intetion of doing so and they don't tell you. Daled for instance, she said after more than a year of being called Daled that it was degrading to be called a letter of the alphabet and after giving it some thought I agreed. Would you like to be called "D"?
It's almost like being called a number, it's like you're not a person anymore but an object or something of the sort. Sice then I have been trying hard to call her by her name but it is not as easy as it seems. Just like people can feel stupid sometimes calling someone by their nickname, it can feel just as strange to call them by their real name after a long time of calling them only by their nickname.
I wouldn't be too worried about offending someone with a nickname though. Most people are only called by their nickname amoung their closer circle of friends, other people usualy use their regular name. Immaign meeting someone for the first time who's friends call "The Shark", I seriosly doubt you'd go calling him The Shark before you got to know him a bit. I wouldn't really be offended by anything my friends call me as long as it's not seriosly meant to offend and most people wouldn't be offended either but it's best to make sure just in case.
Ever meet a "Tom" who just realy isn't a "Tom", he's more of a "Brian", it would be wierd to just change his name and start calling him Brian so instead you give him a nickname, lets say he likes hocky in kind of an obsessive way so you could call him "Puck" for instance.
Why Puck? Why not?
Nicknames espeashaly with internet now adays, have become almost like new names for many people. I'm not talking about the nicknames we use on the internet, I was just pointing out that a lot of people use their real life nickname on the internet. The internet also gets you used to not being called by your birth name, it makes it seem normal to not use your real name which carries on out of the internet and into real life as well. I think just about everybody I know has a nickname and not just one you use every now and then, I mean nicknames that have totaly replaced their old name.
Faduh:
A friend of mine, we started calling him Faduh (it sounds better in hebrew), why? Well he's "silly" (some would call him harmlesly dumb but I know him better) and what better name could someone like that have if not Faduh? His real name is Iftach and trust me he's not an "Iftach". We started calling him Faduh sice about 9th grade and a LOT of people who have known him for years have trouble remembering his real name, even his parents call him Faduh! The origin of the name comes from "Fadiha lesahek ito cadur-regel" (Translation=It's embarasing to play soccer with him), now don't ask me how we shortened it down to only Faduh but hey it works!
A Different example...
Catcher:
We have a dear friend (we as in the regular group of kids I hang out with), he came to us in 9th grade and was introduced to us through Baseball. His part was being catcher, no one knew him so they called him catcher, 5 years later and half the people who know him don't know his real name. I think it's better that way, his real name really doesn't suit him at all, "Noam", it's just very NOT him. So to this day he is rarely called by his real name except for people who are embarrest to call him Catcher.
Here's one that I can take full credit for...
Daled:
Catcher came to us one day with a new girlfriend, she was nice, a bit different, she fit strait in with us. Only problem was that I had a hell of a hard time remembering her name, "Dafna", It was the most unexpected name for her and I don't know why I just couldn't remember it. At first I would ask her 2-3 times an hour but as she started hanging out with us more and more, I felt stupid asking her all time what her name was all the time. So I called her at first "the girl who's name starts with a D" and that felt just as stupid so slowly I just called her by the first letter of her name which in Hebrew is "Daled" and it stuck. A year and a half later and almost everybody who knows her calls her Daled.
Kroop:
There is also a "Nimrod" who we called by his last name untill we found we could shorten it and have a suiting name for him, "Kroop". The name is a must as far as he's concerned, he doesn't tell people his real name anymore after he found out what the word Nimrod means.
My Nicknames:
I had quite a few nicknames myself, my real name is Yosi, I hate it, it's such a typical name in Israel. About 1 out of 20 people in Israel are called Yosi. In 5th-8th grade I had 4 other Yosi's learning with me in the same class pluss I had a teatcher who taught me 4 times a week called Yosi. Highschool, I was in a bunch of classes but luckly they were 96% girls in most of them so there were no other Yosi's but the not so lucky part was that there were 4 important teatchers called Yosi working in school, so it was a name that was called out everywear I went. Eventualy I just ignored it when people called out my name, If they were really calling me then they'd call a second time, it wasn't a bad meathod but it wasn't foolproof. 11th grade I realy got screwed, my main teacher, the one who taught me the most subjects and was responsable for me and my fellow classmates, was called Yosi. That year I totaly blocked the instinct of turning when I heard Yosi, out of my system.
Now back to our subject, nicknames, I have had a bunch of attempts for nicknames people tried to fit me up with, Josh, Josie, Joe, Duglas (my middle name), Dug but the one that somehow stuck the longest was Jesus. A friend of mine pointed out one day that with long hair and a 2 weeks beard, I looked something like Jesus (I don't agree), he pointed it out to people and slowly they began to say that not only do I look like him but I am a Jesus like figure as well, always calm and peacful, never doing anything mean to anyone. Now that makes me out as a goody 2 shoos,I'm NOT! I have done my deal of trouble and older people defanetly didn't see me as a posative figure but I was good to my friends, I was just alway the peacmaker amoung friends, I was always loyal to freinds and I was a bit quieter than most. Anyway the nickname Jesus stuck and up untill today people ocashinoly call me Jesus and everything related to Jesus somehow feels like it has something to do with me. Like if someone starts talking about Jesus when I'm around then they'll say something like, "oh here's our Jesus" or if we happen to see a picture of Jesus everyone will say jomething like "hey Jesus" and turn to look at me. The nickname was fine, I used it on the internet, saving me the bother of thinking up a nickname, till a friend of mine discovered that with an Israeli accent it sounds like Chees-ass and then I got a not so welcomed nickname and even wors than that were all the Jesus freaks the nickname attracted to me, it was like a curse but luckly the Chees-ass faded away fast and I don't go by the nick Jesus anymore on the web. I actualy got my new nickname from a character in a story I wrote and it's a totaly unused name .Acrypt, it looks pretty good in my opinion and it sounds pretty good, for internet use at least, I wouldn't go around letting people call me Acrypt out of the internet.
So what have we learned?
Nicknames are meant mostly for people who either have very unfitting names, just don't like their names or are introduced to people with a name other than their own. There are people out there who have precicly the name that fits their character and they will most likely not ever have the privlage of having a unique nickname made out for them.
Something that I have learned from experiance with my friends is that people can be offended by their nicknames even if there's no intetion of doing so and they don't tell you. Daled for instance, she said after more than a year of being called Daled that it was degrading to be called a letter of the alphabet and after giving it some thought I agreed. Would you like to be called "D"?
It's almost like being called a number, it's like you're not a person anymore but an object or something of the sort. Sice then I have been trying hard to call her by her name but it is not as easy as it seems. Just like people can feel stupid sometimes calling someone by their nickname, it can feel just as strange to call them by their real name after a long time of calling them only by their nickname.
I wouldn't be too worried about offending someone with a nickname though. Most people are only called by their nickname amoung their closer circle of friends, other people usualy use their regular name. Immaign meeting someone for the first time who's friends call "The Shark", I seriosly doubt you'd go calling him The Shark before you got to know him a bit. I wouldn't really be offended by anything my friends call me as long as it's not seriosly meant to offend and most people wouldn't be offended either but it's best to make sure just in case.
posted by Y.Y. at 4:33 PM
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