Nicknames: You're called WHAT?

So, being back home from college, I've found that I have to once again get accustomed to the nickname I had in high school. Many of my good friends from home still call me 'Smitty' or 'Shmitty', based, unsurprisingly, on my last name. And it got me thinking about all the other names I had for a little while while in high school.

-Japanime: What a few girls on the soccer team called me in an attempt to make fun of my anime hobby.
-Shades: When I wore glasses, I had the lenses that darkened when I was outside, so people were surprised by the sudden set of 'shades' I was wearing.
-Kamikaze: This was a massive failed attempt to make fun of me in French class. The dicks in the class didnt like that a friend and I spoke more Japanese in the class than French, so they took the one thing they knew and tried to make it an insult. When I thanked them, and explained that they had actually given me a gorgeous nickname (rough translation: Divine Wind of God), I never heard the name again.

I'm sure there were more, but lord knows if I remember them all. In the end, 'Smitty' is the only one that stuck it out.

What were you called when you were younger, and why? Were some of your nicknames witty, or downright cruel? Did any of them last into your older years, and if so, do you wish they'd fade away, or are you ok with them? Or were you the one giving out nicknames?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Good lord, I had a ton of these. In High School there was Beast, that one was most pervasive. Partially because of being 6'5", 220. And partially for the facial hair and ability to pull attractive girls. Later got adopted by people for the X-Men character. All Gorilla on the outside, smart kid on the inside. Kong came about when I started dating this tiny little blonde girl, but it never really stuck. I got Billy Shakes on the baseball team for being the only cat who liked to read books. Lucifer was the only play on my name I ever got, once the kids figured out what I was named after.

University hit, and being 6'6", 245... Beast got picked up right away by the new friend group. So that one still sticks. I also picked up Papi from the baseball team, because of my penchant for wearing the number 34 and hitting the long ball. My favourite film prof also took to calling me "French", partially because I'm bilingual, and partially because I'm really influenced by French filmmakers.

The one that surprises me is that I never really got "Mack", given my last name and build you'd expect it, but it just never caught on. But yeah, the only one that really stuck was Beast, and the odd person who picks up on it and takes to calling me McCoy, or Hank.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I could only think of two at the moment:

Erica - My first name is Eric and my last name just so happens to begin with an A. Go figure out how that one came to be. People usually use it against me when I'm not paying attention to them.

Kiba - This mostly goes for the people who know me at the arcade in my area. It was my ranking tag in In The Groove for about half a year and since people didn't know my name at the time, they just called me that. They know it now, but they say it's weird calling me by my name so Kiba just stuck with them.

How ya doing, buddy?

Oh man, I've had a bunch...

My first nickname was Tuna. This nickname was given to me in 4th grade, and whenever I was called it, I would cry, which would often mean me getting called it more often. Here's how I was given this nickname: At my school, we would have two lunch lines. Before lunch, we'd take a red or blue stick to decide which lunch we would want.

One day, I took the right stick, but stood in the wrong line. The lunch lady refused to give me what I wanted, which was a hamburger, and instead I got stuck with tuna. I pleaded with her but she wouldn't listen. So I went back to my seat in the cafeteria and cried. Since then, a bunch of people called me Tuna, and I'd cry like a baby.


After the Tuna fiasco, I didn't have any nicknames until I started working at the supermarket, where I was given the nickname Lil' Sprout. This came about for two reasons. One, when I started there, I was very small, and then I shot up and became tall real quick. The other reason was that I was taken under the wing of my assistant manager, who trained me and pretty much got me to come out of my shy, reclusive shell and helped me become who I am today. He said "You know, I'm going to make you my Lil' Sprout." I think my exact reply was, "whatever, that name won't stick."

Since then, everybody at the supermarket knew me as Sprout. Oftentimes, new employees would not know me by my real name, and when people would come up to them and ask where Dave was, they'd say "there's no Dave in this department" and send them on their way. It was my only REAL nickname, and I always loved it. It made me feel accepted and part of a group. Sprout spawned a few varieties, one of which was Sprouticus, which is where my GFF nick comes from, obviously.

My friends outside of work never gave me nicknames until I met my future roommates almost 2 years ago. For some reason, I forget why, they nicknamed me Contfuscious, which is a play on my last name. I think I was given that nickname during a NYC casting trip, and I gave them something I claimed was sage-like wisdom, but was actually something incredibly stupid. Either way, that stuck with them, and all of them call me Contfuscious or something similar, like Contilicious or Contini.

Bonus story: Once when I was young, after the Tuna fiasco, I was telling my family how I wish I had a real nickname, and my grandma chimed in, "How about David the Great?" That has since become an inside joke between my family and I, regarding how silly my grandma can be.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

In high school, me and my friends always came up with nicknames for each other. I don't think I came out too bad, ending up with the name Whitey. This was mainly a joke on the fact that I was the only black guy in the group. It definitely was hilarious when we used it outside the group, the most prominent example I can remember being when we played Laser Tag. I put that down as my name, and when the girl was giving us back our score cards she pronounced it 'Witty' (because Whitey is so offensive ). This was funny enough, but when I went up there to pick it up the look on her face was priceless.

Honestly though, I'm just glad I wasn't Whaleman. We ragged on him all day with that nickname.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Oh, here's one that Shmitty up there will appreciate.

In hockey and footy circles I picked up the nickname "The .44 Caliber Killer" because it's my number of choice in both games. In footy, it's a direct reference Reggie Jackson of Yankee fame, and how people speculated he was the Son of Sam because of his wearing the number 44. I picked it up as a result of my goals per game average tripling come playoff time. Mr. October and all that. Also picked up from my hockey nickname, though for a different reason.

In hockey, it's a slightly more dubious and direct reference to the number and Berkowitz. It initially came up as a result of my love for big hits at the blue line. "Keep your head up, or 44'll take it off" was a pretty regular warning from opposing coaches, and that lead to my team playing it up as the .44 caliber. The Berkowitz reference came when I started fighting. One fight, I caught a guy with a fairly lucky punch and put him out cold before his gloves were on the ice. Leads to my coach calling me a straight up killer, which picked up to the guys referring to me as the .44 caliber killer. The reputation as a bit of a bar fighter didn't hurt, either. Sort of bled over to footy from there. So there you go, Shmitty. A Yankee connection to me.

How ya doing, buddy?

People at my old job use to call me Wal-Mart because I sat outside of one the day the Playstation 2s were due out.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by LeHah

People at my old job use to call me Wal-Mart because I sat outside of one the day the Playstation 2s were due out.

Calling someone "Wal-Mart" or a "greeter" in my group has become slang for retards, because of their penchant for letting downs syndrome kids stand at the door in a blue vest and wave.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I've only really had two nicknames that have stuck (hard with a name like Keith to come up with anything clever) and neither of them are rather flattering. They've both been given to me by girls and sadly they stick to this day.

*Keithor - was given to me by my ex girlfriend back in 2004 and it is still used today by those group of girls.

*Ki Ki - or Kei Kei - also, used by girls whom I've befriended here at school. This one has been used more by my friends here at school, and I'm used to it. Even though it is rather feminine. ;_;

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I haven't really had nor do I have that many nicknames at the moment, but there are two I can mention.

The first one I can remember from way, way back in junior high is "The Golden Pecker" (freely translated from Swedish). Really, there was no reason for me getting this nickname, it was all just made for teasing me. But apparently as the story went, people said I put adhesive-plaster on my pecker and that it turned golden or something from the adhesive. This nickname came up briefly in the beginning of high school too by some people who remembered it, this time added with that I had an enormous cock (how they thought this would be an insult I don't know). Of course I didn't really mind getting associated with having a huge cock.

Orange-kun (it has nothing to do with the Code Geass character, cause I came up with it before the show even started, and no, I'm not proud of having it). This is something I'm called by my friend who's an art student that likes drawing manga. She had been asking me for a while to come up with a story for her new manga. I'm known for coming up with crazy, weird and not so very serious stories, and the one I came up with this time was not an exception.

In short, the story goes like this. Somewhere up in space, there is an orange floating around. Inside the orange is a baby. Jokingly, I gave this character the name "Orange-kun" (pronounced Oreenji-kun like a Japanese would). When Orange-kun has turned 18 years old, the orange gets in orbit with earth and eventually it falls down to the ground, with Orange-kun popping out from the orange. The thing is, that Orange-kun comes from a place where they've got constant contact of the sun and his kind needs the sunlight and a stock of oranges to survive. To make it real easy for you, think of a reverse vampire needing to constantly sunbathe and eat oranges. Anyway, since he could not survive night on earth, he would have to somehow travel across the earth with the sun and at the same time search for pieces to make an orange spacecraft to travel to the place where he came from. In his travelling, he would meet many different kinds of people who would help him on his quest, and he would also have many epic battles with the Vegetable syndicate, led by the evil Mr. Asparagus who despised fruits.

As suspected, she didn't go with this one as she thought it was too weird. From then on she started calling me Orange-kun occasionally. I did get called this a lot when I was with her at a convention (which was my first, and probably last), especially by some stupid Narutards I couldn't fucking stand.

That's all I can remember that's worth telling.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

"Jackathy" by a few people. No real story to it, but when I asked someone, they said it was a portmanteau of my first name and "apathy", which they thought suited me at the time.

I was "Yankee" for about two weeks when I moved back to the UK in 1999, due to the thick Chicago accent I had (I've long since dropped it).

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

A lot of my mates have ended up with really stupid nicknames, I seem to have got off quite lightly.

At uni I was known as Batboy Ed for a while. I was round at a mate's house watching a Twin Peaks marathon. I'd sat down ehen I arrived without taking off my jacket, a 6' leather trench coat at the time, and ended up sitting there for about ten hours getting stoned. It had got dark and we hadn't bothered to turn on the lights. A couple of his housemates had come in after it got dark and apparently had no idea I was even there. I was sit in front of the window so when I stood up to take a piss, one guy who was particularly stoned saw my coat flow out, me sillouetted in the window and screamed in terror, thinking that Batman had come to take him away. After that I was known as Batboy Ed (To differentiate me from Edward Peacock and Shotgun Ed).

More recently I've picked up the nickname Ed Can Do (My Xbox Live gamer tag). If memory serves, that came from me knowing pretty much every dealer in town at one point, meaning that people who couldn't source drugs from their regular contact would ring me to sort it out and my standard answer was apparently "Can do". Without me knowing it, half of Lewes had started referring to me as Ed Can Do and the name stuck. More recently I've been getting called Mr Can Do so I'm tempted to change my Live tag, especially as that would fit in with Mr Goodhand, Mr Phong and Mr Daravon.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I've never really had any nicknames that stuck, but there's a friend of mine who is constantly referred to as Bitches. Basically, in grade eight we started listening to Snoop Dogg, and the line "I got bitches in the living room getting it on, and they ain't leavin' til six in the morning" escalated into an inside joke of massive proportions, and now the nickname has grown with him and spread to his place of work. It is very possible that this is the reason I've tried to avoid having nicknames stick to me.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I have many nicknames, some have stuck, some haven't, most have something to do with my last name which is Jackman. Early in my schooling I was nicknamed Ajax, this stuck for a while. Bullies tried to mix it up and turn it into a insult by calling me Ajax Spray 'n' Wipe. I laughed at their lack of imagination.

Ajax was used up until I eneterd High School, which is when people started to get a little more inventive (and also more cruel ). I was often called names like Jack-Off, Jerk-Off, Jack-Off Man etc. Which I probably cared about for a second before I realised that the names weren't really that funny or cruel. Around people I liked I was just Jackman, because there were an absurd amount of Daniel's and Danielle's in the group I hung around with. People were reguarly confused when I answered to my first name, Daniel.

Then one day in Year 10, we were doing experiments demonstrating the Coriolis effect. I (jokingly) proceeded to insinuate that I had first discovered the effect and that it was named after me, Coriolis Jackman. Bizarrely this name stuck and I was known as Coriolis throughout the rest of my schooling and it gradually drifted into other aspects of my life. I get asked about it all the time, I don't even bother explaining it. It's stupid, I hate it, but it's unique.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Denicalis

Calling someone "Wal-Mart" or a "greeter" in my group has become slang for retards, because of their penchant for letting downs syndrome kids stand at the door in a blue vest and wave.

I never cared for the nickname myself. So I started calling the chubby girl "Michelin Tire Man" every time she called me Wal-Mart. She didn't talk to me for a month.

FELIPE NO

When I was a kid I was called Hams up untill about age 12, than arround 14 I was called Chunk.. Can't imagine why other than I was 250 in 9th grade. When 16 hit a few friends called me banetek because we discovered what the word bane meant while they mused at the little devices I used to piss people off with.

" Poison oak boiled in water with the water sprayed on people " was what triggered the name.

Most amazing jew boots

When I was in high school, I seemed to get stuck with the nickname "Threefold." Something about my coming out of the woods with a candle (I had no flashlights) and into a drinking party of punks. I was probably wearing something reasonably hippie or something.

When some teenage girl comes out of the woods dressed like a hippie and carrying a lie candle, I guess the conclusion the drunken, mohawked mind comes to is that she's a witch.

They bobbed around me a while and invited me to drink with me, but I was on my way to another party, so I wasn't about to humor them. But the nickname stuck for the remainder of high school. I think it also may have to do with being fat lols

Apart from that, a co-worker at the hotel used to call me Dee.

Nothing very original, I'm afraid.

How ya doing, buddy?

When I was in high school I was in the drum line and my section leader stuck me with the nickname "Paco". Now, in Mexico, "Paco" is usually a shortened slang name for "Francisco" or "Frank" and, since neither of those is my middle name, I still have no idea how this white kid started calling me that.

The best part about it was that it spread like wildfire and I never really shook it off as people still call me that to this day. The worst part about it is that it had no reason to exists in the first place since I was never given a logical reason for this to even exist. It's kind of like Chris Crocker, W. Bush and god; nobody really knows why they're there, they just are and they are a fucking nuisance.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Pretty much every nickname I've had has been derived from my surname and not all that imaginative. Probably 'Lord British', which the xblive crew call me is the first non-surname based nickname I've had that's ever stuck around.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

They call me Meatloaf at work because my California ID picture made me look like THE Meatloaf circa 1980. One of my Sous Chefs sings songs and changes the lyrics to "Meatloaf" regardless of whether or not it makes sense.

Even the hispanic population at work calls me that, except they say Milo (Mee Low) and don't really know what it means.

How ya doing, buddy?

When I was highschool I was chosen to help teach CPR to the 9th grade in health class. It was a blast but the Instructor decided to call me "Kurczy", kinda like "Curtsie", given my maiden last name. Stuck with me, that's for sure.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Let me see, I guess it began in Junior High, where people tried to insult me with strange and mean nicknames which were deduced from my appearance.

Later in high school, a good friend of mine started to call me by my surname "Schmitt" - and suddenly everyone I was acquainted with did!

Until that day....

I was on my way home from school by bus when suddenly an unknown person grabbed my trousers and said : "Hey, Steve!"

What the hell happened?! Well, it seems that I still had an appeal to other people. I was like an animal in the zoo - Big, huge, strange and without friends. Everyone wanted to know me ... at least they wanted to know my scientific classification and found it - Steve.
It appeared that there was a huge "Steve Smith" writing on my trousers. "Great, now I'm Steve. :I " - From that day on, people I don't know (and still don't) called me Steve and talked to me just to make fun of me -
Well, I liked that nickname and I still keep it.

Ah, and later on I became the "Freak" - too... simple...grrr

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I went and still go by Frenchy, nothing really derogative, most often by my closer friends but sometimes by people I've just met since most people in the US have difficulties pronouncing my name (or the English appellation for that matter).

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by NovaX

I was often called names like Jack-Off, Jerk-Off, Jack-Off Man etc.

That reminds me, another nickname I had back in high school was Minuteman. I honestly don't even remember how it came up, but I became known as the guy who would masturbate both quickly and often. However it came up, someone dubbed me Minuteman and the name stuck, especially when the subject of masturbation came up. It was never really used as a term of derision though, as a few of my friends actually seemed envious of the fact that I could do it so fast (this was high school, what do you expect).

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I've had quite my share of nicknames during specific times in my life. The only time I can't ever recall having a nickname was during my time in university.

The most common nickname I've had ever since elemenatry school and people still call me it to this day especially when I go back to my hometown is Dick. The nickname dick is always constantly used for anybody in my area that is either named Richard or Derrick.

During my time from Junior High to High School I had my share of nicknames that never lasted for very long such as DJ, Drake, Dirk, and constant others.

The most famous nickname I've ever had and it was during my last year of high school was the name Dirk Diggler not for the obvious reasons that people may think when you first hear that name. There is a story behind this one. I was always called Dick for the longest time but in grade 10 I was fairly tall for my age so the name dick quickly evolved to being called the 6 foot dick especially by the guys I played basketball with. We were on a hockey tournament the same week that Boogie Nights came out on video. I was riding in the bus with all the guys and they basically told me they were getting sick and tired of calling me the 6 foot dick, from now on they were going to call me Dirk Diggler, and that name has stuck but only with people from high school.

I've had two other nicknames in high school but they were mainly just within certain sport circles. I had one nickname for basketball and the other for hockey by the guys I played with. For basketball I was called Horace based on the player Horace Grant, because I played with sport goggles and when I went to a large provincial basketball tournament I was the only guy wearing them. For hockey I was called Bruiser because especially playing in my last two years of minor hockey I was a big physical force. I ended up giving these really bone crunching checks and also I had incredible sense of balance on the ice because I never got knocked down very often. I use to play on the checking line for the last four years of minor hockey.

In terms of right now, the only nickname I have are my close circle of friends that sometimes call me Derack. No apparant reason, one of my friends decided to be silly and started calling me that and its kind of stuck.

Jam it back in, in the dark.