Nicknames have been a part of our vernacular for a long time. Some are descriptive–others have a reason for being coined, but few know what that was.
One evening during the 1940s, my parents loaded their car with friends and drove an hour to reach the Dutch Mill Ballroom at Delavan Lake, Wisconsin, where they danced to the famous Tiny Hill Orchestra. The popular maestro was billed as “America’s biggest band leader.” Like others who shared his nickname, he weighed more than 300 pounds.
Every summer when I was a kid, we went to the annual Tschabold reunion, which included Grandpa’s siblings and their families. I never figured out how many brothers my grandfather had because not all of them attended. If Dad talked about his uncles, sometimes he said Oscar, Emil or William and other times it was ‘Bean’, ‘Pork’ or ‘Flat’.
Some people dropped the label as they matured. Back when pregnancy seemed to be an epidemic in my generation, a lot of my friends named their boy babies after their fathers and called the child ‘Junior’. Recently at a friend’s retirement party, I had to keep reminding myself the gray-haired man was Ray not ‘Junior’ or the family favorite, ‘Junie’.
Others used the appellation all of their lives. During the seven years Ken and I lived on the farm, ‘Bump’ delivered our mail. Some people never knew his legal name was Floyd. One of our village mayors introduced himself to everyone as ‘Pokey’, his high school moniker. He signed papers with his initials M. M. I never heard anyone call him Marion. Our friend, Harold, became ‘Grandpa Sonny’.
Girls, too, were given nicknames. Families tended to use the same first name over and over. Dad’s clan had ‘Big Margaret’ and ‘Little Margaret’ to distinguish between the generations. On Mom’s side, one of my cousins was named after her dad’s only sibling and we called her ‘Sis’. Her sister’s golfing buddy was a short, chubby woman who everybody called ‘Pudge’.
Some women preferred their appellation. When Uncle Bobbie married Viola, she asked us all to call her ‘Babe’.
Are nicknames still popular?
It seems that you have had to deal with an awful lot of nicknames – me not so much. My dad was the first one to call me Jo & several husbands have followed suit. Sid has given me the most nicknames with Jo, Jo Jo, Baby, Babe & occasionally Joyce. My sister was Janice until she wanted to be called Jan. I still call her Janice. I don’t remember you, or my other friends, Phyllis, or Janice Quass having nicknames. Dad’s brothers – August was Gus, Theodore was Ted – not very unusual. Our ponies real name was Babe, but we called her Fosi – why, I have no idea & where it came from, I do not know. Of course, mother being Veronica was Ve, & sis to her sister Gwen; mother’s brother Vernon was Bud. That’s about it.