Jan 10, 2007
And speaking of names
I’m on several mailing lists at my company which give details of server maintenance outages and the like. And most of the time, they fly through the inbox and I can happily ignore them.
However, yesterday there were a flurry of mails with priceless subject lines:
I loved the idea that they needed to take all the little green Irish fellas out of service to give them new green trousers, or because the pot of gold was broken or something.
However, I’m sure that our colleagues in the US just thought about it as a server name – because that’s what happens, isn’t it? We give things names and the words – the names – themselves lose meaning as real words, and become forever associated with the thing we have names.
So my cat is called Pickle – but when I think of her name I don’t think of Branston anymore, I think “small brown cat with kittenish tendancies”.
<gratuitous picture of my cat>
</gratuitous picture of my cat>
And when (back in the heady days of the first dotcom boom) we used to have a meeting room at work called “Cyberspace” (I know, I know), we would inevitably end up mystifying visitors and newbies by saying “we’re meeting in Cyberspace” or “Oh no, I think I left my notepad in Cyberspace”. The word became meaningless (well, in that case, more meaningless) and described only the room.
Likewise, people’s names become attached to them, and stop being names after a while, becoming instead individual-descriptors. I’m probably the only Meg most people know, so for them, Meg = me, this individual. However, I know several Iains, Johns, Toms, Matts, Pauls and people called Chris (what’s the plural anyway?) so the relationship between name & person becomes less strong – and inevitably, we end up resorting to nicknames.
Perhaps this is why I’ve never really had a nickname – perhaps Meg is unique enough?
Do you have a nickname? What is it?
More on nicknames.
Big evolving list of nicknames.
I’ve always been Pete but then there’s usually never been another Pete around at the time. In fact I get a but unsettled when I meet another Pete, like that’s not allowed or something. When I see the name Pete on a list of comments or something I get a little unsettled, like someone is masquerading as me.
People like coming up with variations of Mo – most I’ve heard many times before, but it’s nice that such a simple thing can put smiles on faces.
One of the best from this week: “TheyTriedToMakeMeGoToRehabButISaidMoMo-Mo”
Karen wasn’t the world’s most popular name in the decade of my birth, so I don’t run in to many other Karens on a regular basis, and I never had a nickname besides the (thankfully) short-lived “Kare-Bear” that a friend came up with when we were 12. But I read Pete’s comment and immediately identified with it. It feels very strange to me…like he said…when I run into someone else with my name. Like it’s not allowed. I once worked a job where, two years after I began working there, they hired another woman named Karen. I instantly disliked her, without even having met her, because I somehow felt threatened by the fact that she had *my* name. Even when there is a character named Karen on a TV show, I start to wonder (i.e., worry) whether or not people who watch the show (and who also know me) somehow associate me with the character’s personality traits, simply because we share the same name. It’s very odd, I realize, and yet these are my instinctive gut reactions/thoughts.
Tango.
For reasons which have been discussed on my blog but MIGHT just need resurrecting.
I also get called “G” (pronounced.. uh.. “gee”) by some people. Abbreviated versions of my name are also used but not widely enjoyed by the owner of the name!
I was primary school with 5 other Nicolas. So used to others with the same name. What drives me nuts is my name being shortened or changed by people who don’t know me well enough to do that. If I’ve been introduced to you as Nicola for the love of God don’t call me Nicky because it’s over familiar and if you knew me well enough to do that, you’d also know I hate being called Nicky. So ouside of work, I’m Nic.
But my brother calls me Nicnak (that’s ok I call him Bungy) my mother has always called me Pollyanna and variations on that – her favourite being pollyanna-poodlebum and/or Flossie. You can see why I love them!!
Hmmm…. many people just use my surname. And no, I didn’t go to that sort of public school. And Giiiiiillllll was popular as a nickname for a time (around the time that Wiiiiilllll was on TFI Friday).
Oh, and when I was about 10, Biggum after the giant in Jigsaw on BBC1.
PS: More gratuitous cat pictures welcome!
My nickname is Meg, actually. My real name is Margaret. No one but the bank calls me by my real name.
Well my nickname is Birdy-but also B.(with a dot) and Birdwell, which is a nickname for Krys which is nickname for Krystal. I hate the name Krystal as it applies to me. It’s like calling Meg….Judy. That’s not your name and it feels wrong. That’s what Krystal feels like to me. That and there are too many Krystal appearances on Jerry Springer in the form of strippers and bottle blond trailer chicks.
Anyway-Birdwell came from my college days when we all gave each other nicknames and Birdwell was the name I used to get into certain movie theatres for free because someone with the surname Birdwell was on the no pay list.
When I was very young my Dad used to call me “Cherrystopper”, based on breaking my name down into syllables – Chri (Cherry) stop (stop) her (er).
I also remember he used to make me and my two brothers cry laughing with a lengthy story/joke about a boy called Archibald-arsehole-in-felt. Must get him to tell me it so it can be passed down to the next Locke generation.
I just found out my 2 year old nephew has learned the word Peaches and, using the power of the portmanteau is calling both them and me “Uncle Peaches”. I quite like that.
My school nickname was DRAIN.
My university nickname was BLACK BETTY SEABITCH
Now people call me SEVITZ or SEVITZDOTCOM which is quite cool. Amazing how quickly my new office changed to call me SEVITZ not ADRIAN. I don’t mind adrian but it has never quite been the coolest name on the planet.
“Chrisses”. I used to work with a few of them, and we came up with the proper pluralisation of that name.
I have no nickname, for the record.
Meg,
I promised a post so here it is. Pickle looks like a very cute cat indeed. I used to have a cat called kiki but she has now moved on to that great big cattery in the sky.
Regarding my nicknames, I never really had one though I got Roland Rat and Roland from Grange Hill alot – but I try to forget that if i can. For a while I was called Roy in school as I had a corduroy jacket that i would wear all the time but that’s another story (as featured on John Peels Home Truths on Radio 4 a few years ago!)
Thanks for a great presentation at the Nesta event yesterday. Hope you enjoyed it too.
Roland