We knew that Jasper was going to be Jasper for months before he was born. From the moment that we found out that he – hitherto referred to as Sprout – was going to be a he, he was Jasper. Jasper. It was a name for eccentric old English uncles, for suspender-wearing artists pottering about in skylit attics, for crusty old men with beards restoring boats and smoking pipes on pebble-strewn beaches, for boys in knee-britches chasing rabbits in heather fields. Jasper. I loved the name. I knew that it was his name with as much certainty as I’ve ever known anything.
My mother hated it. Oh, honey, she said when I told her. Oh, honey, really?
The lesson, don’t tell anyone what you’re planning on naming your child, hadn’t sunk in from my first pregnancy, when she pulled an oh honey no on Emilia’s original name, Theo. Really, Mom. And it’s not up for discussion.
But what will you call him for short?
– What does that matter, Mom? We’ll call him what we call him. Which, I thought, was a perfectly sensible response. After all, we couldn’t have guessed in advance that we’d refer to Emilia as Budge (my mother calls her Milly, Jasper calls her Maya, but she is and will always be, to her father and me, Budge or Budgie. And no, we do not know why. She just is Budge.) How could we know what we would call Jasper? That would sort itself out after he arrived.
Or not.
The obvious diminutive form of Jasper is ‘Jas’ or ‘Jazz’ – ‘Per’ doesn’t quite roll off the tongue – and we certainly sometimes call him that, but more often than not we simply spin silly variations on any word – or, as the case may be, non-word – that begins with a J. This sometimes takes a turn for the bizarre, and, very occasionally, the inappropriate.
J-Man.
The J-Bird.
The Jabberwock.
Jimbo.
The Jibbler.
Jibby.
DJ Jazzy J.
Jazzer.
Jazzer Arafat.
Jasberry Ram.
Jaspberger.
Jizzer
Jizzburger
Joey.
Joomba.
Joombalaya.
Joo.
That last one caused a little confusion on a playdate the other week. Jasper was performing some of his usual acrobatics on a swingset and, in the process, ended up upside down in some sand, which prompted me to leap to my feet and yell something to the effect of oh, J-Man! Joey! My little Joo!
Which prompted my new friend to spin on the bench. Did you just call him your JEW?
– Huh?
Are you Jewish?
– What? Oh, god, no, it’s just… he’s… I sometimes call him… I call him lots of things… you know… like…
… and I swear to god, at precisely that moment my twisted, sleep-deprived mind could only think of Jazzer Arafat, which, you know, would only lead her to think that I have a really perverse outlook on peace in the Middle East, although that would have maybe been marginally better than telling her that I also sometimes call him Jizz.
At that moment I realized that, however irritated I had been by my mother’s early questions about Jasper’s name, she had been right about one thing: sometimes, the names don’t just sort themselves out. Sometimes, you have to give a little thought to what you’re going to holler across the playground. ‘Budge,’ Emilia’s nickname, has garnered some funny looks, but I doubt that it has caused anyone to question my politics, or my sanity. And when she’s sixteen and we’re still calling her that, she’ll roll her eyes at us and protest – just as I did when my mom called me Trinky in front of my friends (she still does this from time to time) – but it won’t really be all that embarrassing, and she’ll learn to appreciate it as the term of affection that it is. But Jasper, I am sure, is not going to want me shouting Jizzer! or Joo! at his football games or dance recitals. So.
Beware the Jibberwock
As I once said (and it seems such a very long time ago now), nicknames are special names, and they are always, by their very nature, “gibberish, gobbledygook, nonsense. Words that mean nothing, but which are nonetheless utterances of affection, expressions of love in our own private language.” All of the names that I, that we – my husband, Emilia and I – call Jasper are babbled utterances of love, and even though some of them lend themselves to misunderstanding, and all of them are nonsensical, and none of them have stuck, they are all exuberant expressions of how very much we love him, of how very, very, beyond-the-reach-of-ordinary-language special he is.
Still. We should probably restrict the use of Jazzer Arafat and JizzBomb to the yard.
You don’t need to tell me your nicknames for your kids, although I’d love it if you would. And, are there any names that you’ve had to restrict to private use? That the grandparents have looked at askance? That have caused funny reactions in the playground? Or am I the only one who should be consulting UrbanDictionary before I holler at my kid?
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It’s interesting how so many nicknames sound so cute when said within the family, yet so weird when said outside in the presence of strangers. All I can say about my own nicknames is that two of them were food-related.
.-= Bryony Boxer´s last blog ..How To Survive Air Travel With Kids =-.
Anna has been The Kid in utero and out, Silly Goose, Goose, The Goose, etc. Parker is mostly PeeDee. Her big sister named her that in utero which surprised us because she said she wanted a girl. Turns out, according to Anna, that is a girl’s name. Parker is most often PeeDee, but she is also referred to as PeeDee PeeDee Parker and as PeeDee PeeDee Pumpkin Eaty How Does Your Garden Grow. I’m not sure what kind of monster would call her that… Her initials are PJ, and yet, that’s not one of her nicknames.
.-= Heather´s last blog ..Laundry =-.
Oh this is beyond funny!! Jizzbomb. LOVE IT.
Both my kids have “different” names… meaning, you won’t find them in the top 500 but with that they don’t have easy roll-off-the tongue nicknames either.
We also have a weird made-up language around here – husband & I had it even before kids, and though we chided ourselves once the kids were born that we needed to scale it back, tone it down, around the kids, lest they grow up believing those are actual WORDS… well, we didn’t. And we hear them saying things like Gosh, mom I’m horms. And hope they don’t actually SAY that around anyone else. Horms means hungry, dontchaknow?
As to telling the parents prior to said child’s arrival. The moment after finding out our daughter was a girl I immediately called my mother & told her we were going to call her Sinead. She laughed out loud… until I said, no, actually, that I was serious. At which point, I stopped consulting her about names. Cause dangit I LIKED Sinead.
.-= kelly (@kellynaturally tweeter formerly known as @kblogger)´s last blog ..Keeping Your Cool =-.
We’ve always made up words, totally long before having kids. Weird names for everything, bizarre nicknames for our cats. It’s a wonder that we pass in polite society.
My daughter, Chloe, started calling herself “coco” when she was just learning to talk. That somehow turned into “coco puff”.
Our nanny calls her Cookie which cracks me up.
.-= LD´s last blog ..School =-.
Big Kid and Smorgas. Or Tedster and the Smoog. (pronounced Shmorgas and Shmoog)
I guess I’ll stop when they bring girl friends home.
And you don’t go all the way to SmorgasBORD? I wouldn’t be able to resist that.
So my oldest we call everything. Monster, monkey, muffin,pumpkin, turkey baby, turkey butt, pumpkin pie, girl-child, kiddo, kidlet, punky, punky- girl and any variation thereof. The second girl is two weeks old and already has Jumpy, jump-jump, Z, and Squishy. Both of them have been called “my little mexican baby” but only in private. And honestly, they do look latino…
So. Almost as good as JAZZER ARAFAT. Or, JASPERGER’S SYNDROME.
@Her Bad Mother, The bad part is that Turkey, turkey-baby, turkey bird and turkey butt are all ways that I am TRYING to avoid calling her a childhood nickname of mine…. Turd. My dad. What can I say, the man has always been colorful. But my kid! She creates nicknames too! We are in Alabama- my people are country, maybe redneck even? Husband’s family is very suburban- guess which grandma ended up with “Mee-maw” as a name? Ha! And then, oh so organically, grandpa became “Pee-paw” which can make me roll around on the floor laughing.
Love this! Love your blog and all these fun responses!
I have a 5-year old son – Eben. He started off in utero as “Bug”. After he was born, he became Bubba the Sweetest little man, which morphed into Bubba Sweetman, and he is still Sweetman, or DJ Sweetman. He is also Ebos, Ebosnebbs, Ebosnebbikins, Chunchie, and Chunchkin (the last two are modifications for the nickname I call my husband, Chuncho, which is derived from Nacho Libre’s “Hey Chuncho, I need to borrow some sweatpants!”).
My second son, who is only 7-months old, has had less time for us to develop nicknames for. His proper name is Gideon. Of course, we call him Giddy, which everyone said would be horrible, but it actually suits him quite well. It also makes a pretty fantastic diaper-changing song: There was a baby who had a poopy bum, and Giddy was his name-o, G-I-D-D-Y…and so on… He is also known as Bundlekin and Brumby (I know I’m asking for it to refer to him as a wild horse, but it suits him too!).
This, of course, does not stop with our children, the cats and the dog have many names also. It appears as though once you start, you can’t stop!
Our cats have nicknames, too. In fact, I don’t know that we’ve EVER called them by their real names. The kids just know them as, among other things, the Bad Ladies, Sis and Doob, Sissypants and Effin Doob (don’t ask).
@Her Bad Mother, as in pass me the effin doob????
.-= kelly (@kellynaturally tweeter formerly known as @kblogger)´s last blog ..Keeping Your Cool =-.
My sister-in-law used to call my oldest daughter Peanut. That stopped shortly after my son was born when my daughter got the notion that “peanut” referred to a part of the male anatomy, and asked me why her aunt called her such a strange thing. I explained the difference, but still…
My son gets called Jeep, for his initials, G.P.
My youngest, Selene, doesn’t have too many nicknames yet. I don’t like calling her “Silly”. She makes a good “monster” with the noises she loves to make, or “rascal” because she’s always into mischief.
We also mess with the pronunciation of her name. Selene, Selena, Sell-uh-nay, Sell-lay-nuh. I call her Lena sometimes too.
.-= Stephanie´s last blog ..Don’t Let Your Kids Be Incompetent in Basic Life Skills =-.
I wanted to name Matthew, Sebastian. (I should have told NO ONE DAMMIT!)
All my kids have had nicknames and it has followed tradition to our littlest.
Aaron is “Butterlump” “My little pat of butter” and “Little one”.
In contrast, my father called my twin sister and I “Jill” “Punzelle” “Gilda” and “Anna Maria Stanzetti”.
I seriously think I am doing ok in comparison.
.-= Loralee´s last blog ..What is it about taking family photos that makes you feel like throttling everyone IN the photos? =-.
@Loralee, I love the name Gilda. Also, with nicknames like ‘Anna Maria Stanzetti,’ is it any wonder you gravitated to opera?
.-= Catherine´s last blog ..A Jasper By Any Other Name =-.
Stinkerbutt, which turned into Tinkerbutt, which turned into Tink.
We even made up a song (to the tune of “You Are My Sunshine”:
You are my Tinkerbutt
My little Tinkerbutt
You make poopies, twice a day
You’ll never know dear, how much they TIIIINK
Because we throw the diapers away.
(My husband gets credit for that one.)
@Jo, one day, I will write the post about my songs. Such as, “The Stinky Man” (to the tune of “The Candy Man”) and “Steamer” (to the tune of “Dreamer”)
(*ahem*: “STEAMER/Jibby rolled a steamer/Now he’s got a poo in his pants OH NO…”)
.-= Catherine´s last blog ..A Jasper By Any Other Name =-.
Well, the oldest responds to Munchie, Munchie Butt, Munchie Moo, Tadpole (Because I was a froglette and my dear ole Dad just couldn’t let it go) and Little Bunny Tay-Tay.
Middle is KaylaBug or Love Bug.
But it’s the last one that really has the worst of it. He’s Jackasaurus, Jack Attack, Bubba, Bugaboo, and most regrettably: Jacks-off (Because the opposite of JacksON is … you got it.)
I have no idea why my children’s nickname are so much longer than their real names.
.-= followingtheroad´s last blog ..Gah. =-.
@followingtheroad, aaaand, Jacks-off just made me LAUGH. OUT. LOUD.
YOU WIN NICKNAMES.
.-= Catherine´s last blog ..A Jasper By Any Other Name =-.
@Catherine, Do I get a crown? I should totally get a crown.
.-= followingtheroad´s last blog ..Gah. =-.
My kids both had a long string of names when they were smaller… Now they have one each (though variations sometimes!) Matt is Shoo (because when he was a baby he loved the sound of shhhoooooooo instead of just shh) and Preston is Goog… Which derives from the following: peanut -> peanuty goodness (sung to the tune of cookie monster C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me, sub c is for cookie with peanuty goodness) -> somehow became pgoodness -> which somehow turned into Goog, Googstar, Googstar Airlines, etc.
My daughter is a mil- started out as milly girl, then milly, and now it is mostly just mil (or mil
pill, sil bil mil, etc). Has nothing at all to do with her given name, but it started organically when she was less than a month old and mil is now pretty much what her dad and I call her exclusively.
I love nicknames.
I am not a parent yet, but my best friend’s little sister has a pretty adorable nickname. Her name is Angie, but her family calls her Angie Panjy Ping Pang Orangutan. 
I love that there are other people who call their kids all kinds of crazy crap
Both of my girls have long lists of nicknames.
The oldest is any number of these: Charlabear, Beaner, Sweetie pea, Charlootie, Loo loo, Budge, Beedge, Beedgie bear… there are more that I can’t think of right now. I’ve recently been informed, however, that I am only to call her Sweetie pea or Beedge; because she likes those.
The younger is: Clarity bell, Claribeener, Claribana, Bananarama, Clubby, Clubooboo, Clubanarama, Beeb… sometimes Abraclairdabra.
I completely agree with the adage that “a much loved child has many names.”
It’s kind of a compulsion with me, I think… none of my best friends ever expect to hear me utter their actual names
My husband answers to Monkey Bucket – only for me though
.-= Jessica´s last blog ..Holy Crap, She’s 2! =-.
@Jessica, my husband answers to Doofus, but only for me
.-= Catherine´s last blog ..A Jasper By Any Other Name =-.
I am slightly embrassed to admit this but for as long as I can remember my daddy called me sonaconahoneywok, said exactly as it is spelled. The rest call me jule or Jules. Juli, the name I use is just half of my given name. I have fallen into the trap of calling all my nephews baby. The 3 y/o is a big boy not a baby as he tells me, ( his mum calls him her zacahrycakes)!
names. little feathered keys. some jingle. some clank. some sing. they open doors, smiles, hearts.
i balk at writing ours here because they are *magical*, and because I am ridiculously private, and because if I did I’d look over my shoulder for the tsk tsk tooth-sucking sound of the voodoo high priestess.
i can tell you they are mostly delicious, they are sweets and baked goods and silly floral names, they are gender bent and have no known origin. Then get shortened and become derivative nick-names and nonsense songs and inside jokes. and now we are perched on the precipice of DON’T when the endearments become embarrassing and so i sneak them in like icing at just the right moment lest there be shrugging and eye rolling.
they are precious.
.-= EarnestGirl´s last blog ..Why I Do This =-.
Laughing out loud and waking the children, damn you.
I thought that we came up with a nickname-proof name with Thalia.
Sage, at only two, bested us. When she started calling her Thal-Yuck.
.-= mom101´s last blog ..Pink and blue =-.
Now that Wombat, Lizard, and My Main Man Stan are teens and a budding preteen, they prefer I restrict those nicknames to the house.
We call her baby girl, monkey, senor crankypants, the baby and Magagaloo, Miss Maggie, Magaggie.
We change the lyrics to songs for her and my favourite is Magagaloo to the tune of the Muppets Mah Na Mah Na song.
My mother calls her Maggie Margaret, which is a bit odd.
I’ll also throw in the odd poopypants or stinky bum.
.-= Amy B´s last blog ..Dear Baby, =-.
Boo calls the older kids Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Always has, likely always will. I, however, call the girl Zee, or MicMacPaddiwhack when I feel like really embarrassing her in front of her friends. The middle child has always been Smash, Skjel was Joe (don’t ask…can’t answer…he was just a real Joe) and Knox gets Knoxy, Fox, Foxy Knoxy, KiKi, Keeks, Kickadoo, Rocky and the list goes on. Lately it’s Kiki.
I figure he’s wearing his hair in a ponytail right now, I may as well go whole hog on the gender confusion bit.
.-= Redneck Mommy´s last blog ..Somebody Tell Me What To Do =-.
Seriously cackled over Jazzer Arafat. And Joo. Cackled.
My mother also balked when we told her that we were going to name our first India. In the end, that’s not who she was, so she got a different name, but we decided we certainly would not give away our choices for our second kid. My mother would antagonize me anyway, with her, It’s not going to be India, is it? to which I would answer, Oh mom, you are going to WISH her name was India.
As for nicknames? The first is lovebug, the second is, well also lovebug. Although her father and I often refer to her as Cassidy Catastrophe. Or Hurricane Cassidy. It’s accurate.
.-= kgirl´s last blog ..On Blogging =-.
chan the man prefers we not call him that. but on his facebook page he lists “chanzy, chandelier, champaign, Chan, and even Terry Fox” as his many names. i think chan the man should still be allowed.
our daughter is aly-bally-doodle-all-the-day. and she always has been.
our youngest is samsonite.
.-= leaking crazy´s last blog ..up and down and up and down =-.
My dad called me “muck” when I was a kid. Don’t ask me why because I have no idea.
My daughter is Aery Beary Fairy, Air Bear and Booger. My son is Con-Man, Conny or Goober.
Occasionally they’re both ‘GOTOYOURROOMRIGHTNOWDAMMIT!’
.-= Barnmaven´s last blog ..Powerless =-.
My daughter, Natalie, referred to herself as “Nanny” when she was first learning to talk. We adopted it because we heard it all. day. long. Now, she’s Nan, Nanners, Nanalicious, Nanaroo… etc.
My son Carson is Bud. That’s it. Daughter Emma is Emma Bear, Sissy(I’m the only one that calls her that). They both get the normal sweetheart, sweetie, honey, etc. They haven’t reached the age of being embarrassed by me or their dad. But when they do get to that age I should have some really good nicknames that will be just mortifying!
Mine get a lot of those good old standards – muffin, Miss Muffet, Sweet Pea, lovey, that sort of thing. Pumpkinpie also gets called ladybuggy or Lady Lou Who, or by Miss G, G-girl, G-unit, etc. The Bun is already confused about his name because of a daycare nickname I hate, so I try hard to reinforce his real name so he at least KNOWS it, when I’m not calling him buddy and little man and so on.
And kittenpie, of course, was my orange cat’s nickname. The black one goes by Stupid, Doofus, or Fooly Cat. Or Snouty, because he does have a long snout.
.-= kittenpie´s last blog ..Subway Sweets =-.
Also was going to add I know a few small Jaspers – it’s cute, and way better than the weird crap my mom was suggesting, so there you are.
.-= kittenpie´s last blog ..Subway Sweets =-.
My daughter, Hannah, has been: Hannah Banana, Punky, Bunny, Bunny Boo, Hannie Boo, Boo-ba-doo, Boo Boo, and my favorite–Monkey Doodle. One of her day care teachers calls her miss chatterbox.
These are awesome…we have so many nicknames too. Eldest is mostly Papoosie Girl, given by my mother after we swaddled her within an inch of her life, she was colicy! Then there was Rosebud and finally Sweetpea. They all have others of course, with the strangest for the baby being, Memaka…I am actually not even sure how to spell it. Her most fitting would be Miss Screamy Pants, she is quite a screamer.
.-= Jenifer´s last blog ..Summer lovin’ and the forgettin’ is easy =-.
My name is Amanda. While I was growing up, my father took to calling me :Skeeter” because I buzzed around him like a mosquito. That is all well and good, until Lil John came out with that “From the windooow, to the walls, till the sweat drip down my b*lls, awww SKEET SKEET muthaf*cka!” rap song, thus announcing to the word that a slang term for semen (aka JIZZBALLS) is skeet. My then-boyfriend-now-husband still gets a kick out of the fact that my father basically calls me “ejaculator”.
I am guilty of the million nickname problem. Age has made me forget most of them for the oldest 2- but a few stuck.
When my 13 year old was about 2, she declared herself a grown lady… so I’d refer to her as Miss Madalyn. After a while, I just called her Miss, and still do.
When my 10 year old son, Benjamin, was a baby, he had super blue eyes. He was called Benja-Blue. I also called him Bud. He still answers to Bud.
When the two of them were younger, I was a participant of a mommy message board, and when I’d talk about them, they were the ‘wee beasties’. Now, it has become a term of endearment in our house. They refer to themselves as beasties. I am the head beastie.
We also have a 6 month old, Melody. When she was a newborn, she’d pull her legs up under her when she slept on our chests and we called her froggie. Then she started grunting while she nursed and I called her my little piggie. Then, when she started to move around more and hold her head up, I noticed how big her ears are and how her little bit of hair stood up in a large tuft on top of her head. She looked just like a little monkey. For 4 months now, I have hardly used her name. She is the Monkey. Pronounced- Mohn-kay.
.-= Jolene´s last blog ..Melody, a birth retrospective (finally!) =-.
My husband’s uncle was named Thumper in the womb by all of his siblings because (of course) he thumped, and Bambi had just been released that year.
Thumper never was called “David” – so much so that last year, “David” LEGALLY changed his name to “Thumper David Smith.”
Seriously. How awesome is that?
When I was first pregnant, and before she was born, we called our eldest daughter Hannah, Macadoo. Now she mostly answers to Boojamagoo, Booj, or Shug (short for sugar bear). The little one is usually Chicken, Chickamagoo, Chicka, Memma Katerina, Mem, or Memma Kate. When I’m talking about or to both of them, they’re my magoos or the chicklets. I’m a big fan of nicknames! We rarely use their actual given names- and when we do they know they’re in trouble. Big trouble when we start using their real middle names too!
I named my son Zachary, and my entire Spanish-speaking family calls him Zacharito. Which I turned into Zacharito Bandido, and then just Frito Bandido. No idea where that came from, since I don’t even remember those ads!
This tugged at my heart in a totally unexpected way. I had never thought about nicknames with so much affection before.
My daughter’s name is Violet Picabo (peek-a-boo). As you can imagine their were a few protests, but in the end the name fits her like the very skin she was born in. My grandparents call her Picabo, almost exclusively. I tend to call her Vi-Vi or Boo when I am feeling melty and dewy eyed. Middle-naming her on the playground always causes a few heads to turn. No matter how aggressively you scream VIOLET PICABO, it sounds like you’re playing a game.
.-= Kelly´s last blog ..Wardrobe Wednesday =-.
I used to babysit a little boy who was nicknamed Bud. On his first day of JK he got sent to the principal’s office because he wouldn’t answer the teacher when she called his name, (Stephen). Turns out he didn’t know that Stephen WAS his name!
And I nicknamed my youngest Badness Jones before he could even walk….he also gets called Smash and Sam Bam. My oldest is nicknamed Lollie – She used to wear only purple, and my husband called her some endearment and she insisted, no, she was a purple lollipop, which eventually got shortened.
Jasper’s nicknames killed me, I loved reading everyone else’s too.
.-= badness jones´s last blog ..Damage Control =-.
I have a niece who is 45 years old and still answers to Poopsie. I believe the nickname stems from the time, at age 2, when she used the display bathrooms at Sears.
I love this. Kendall’s nickname will NEVER be Ken or, heaven forbid, Kenny. Oh God, I shudder to think of that. It is, instead, Robble, at least amongst my husband and I. NO clue where it came from. We can not dissect it’s origins because it seems it came about in a colicky newborn sleep deprived haze which our brains have wiped from existence. All we know is since our earliest memories of being functioning parents (around 7 months), we have referred to him as Robble. And I’m told this is the noise the Hamburgler makes when he steals and eats hamburgers. I’m fairly certain we didn’t know this or have this in mind when the name came about, although I guess I can’t be positive.
.-= JIll @BabyRabies´s last blog ..It’s super fun to freak mom out, even in utero. =-.
My sweet little girl’s name is Nico (yes, she is named after that Nico) which doesn’t present too many problems. I mean, her nicknames are Monkey and Baby girl which have nothing to do with her name. The only foreseeable problem will be school. Apparently Nico in (this really isn’t meant to sound offensive or racist) Lebanese or Arabic, I honestly can’t remember, is blowjob. Awesome. We’ve never been able to get an absolute straight answer because those who are horrified by our daughter’s name are also incredibly embarrassed.
Did I mention that she will be going to an ultra multicultural school in the fall? For the love of god.
.-= Ms. Whiteplates´s last blog ..A Lament for Gluten =-.
@Ms. Whiteplates, I forgot that our smallest child (Django) is otherwise known as Bubs, Bubby, Bubba and Butters. He was a fat baby.
I didn’t have a nickname when I was a child because my parents were weird about nicknames, my mom was horrified when we called Nico Froggy for her first few months of life – a sleeping newborn with her legs bent kind of look like frog legs. I don’t know if it is because they are extraordinarily religious and don’t want to equate humans with animal but that’s what they get for all the mind boggling religiousy things they say at my dinner table.
.-= Ms. Whiteplates´s last blog ..A Lament for Gluten =-.
Josie is Princess Whups-a-Daisy; she falls a LOT. Noah is Boo-boo, Knight Whups-a-Daisy Uh-Oh, and Noah Skywalker. Guess which 2 he requested?
We are alos on the gazillion and one nicknames train. And all of them – nonsensical.
Matthew (11) is Matt, Matty, Mouse, Matt the Rat, Magoo, Mister, Machoo (like a sneeze), Mighty Mouse, Schmoopsie poo, Boy, Wondernut, Thunderpants.
Grace (6) is Gracie, Gracie-Lou, Freebush, Bush, Gracie-Lou-Who, Goose, Gooshius, Baby Girl, Peanut, Shmooshy face.
Our Dog (Charlie) gets Charles, Chubbers, Foofy, Fluffernut, Furface, Shar-lay. And last, but definitely not least, our cat’s real name is Stinky. She is also known as Princess, Petunia, Kitty and Stinkers.
My daughter Sophie has been all of the typical nicknames- Sophie, soapy, sweet pea, sweetie p, poppy, squishers, and little buddy- which morphed into buddy- which has morphed into budders. People immediately think of the unfortunate little boy on south park and ask why I would do such a thing… But it is what it is. And for now, it’s stuck.
Like one of the previous commentors, both of my boys have been called BoogerButt from their births. Also Baby Bear. In writing, they get called N and T.
I’m not a big fan of people shortening my boys’ names though, they are Nicholas and Tobin, not Nick or Tobey.
Mostly, though, I call my boys “My Love” and “My Heart”.
.-= Sherry Carr-Smith´s last blog ..The Lies We Tell Ourselves =-.
Somehow my baby brother (16 yrs younger) is called “Bacon” – his name is JACOB. I have no idea where it came from. Maybe b/c Jacob has 4/5 letters that spell Bacon??
He answers to it anytime you say it. Quite funny.
Definitely lends itself to lots of fun jokes – when cooking breakfast, grocery shopping, and especially the Beggin’ Strips commercial “Iiiiit’s BACON!!!!”
Loved the post.
I may or may not have spit out my water on the monitor when I read “JizzBomb”
previous comment notwithstanding, my dog answers to about 7 names too – among them Ding-a-Ling (great fun to shout across a park & watch him run to it) and ZaZa.
n.b: this comment was voodoo priestess approved. she waives all jurisdiction over anyone else but me.
.-= EarnestGirl´s last blog ..Why I Do This =-.
Our kids are named Kyler Kermit who we mostly call Kermit or Blue, and Mikabella Merx we call her Pink, Mika, Squweaka, or Bella-roni (like Rice-a-roni), or Monster-bella. The colors have been a funny set of nicknames for them. It came out of necessity actually. I yelled to my husband one day to help, he said which one Blue or Pink? It seemed easier and faster than yelling their names. The trouble comes in now, we are pregnant with our 3rd…. what color will we call him/her? We don’t know what it is yet?
.-= Brittany´s last blog ..I’m really good at changing my blog header….. =-.
My sister’s name is Brooke, but has always been Josie to my mom and Buddy to me. And now that she is an Auntie….. wait for it…. we call her Auntie.!
.-= Brittany´s last blog ..I’m really good at changing my blog header….. =-.
My second daughter has been “Bucket” since birth (her name is Olivia). She was such a large baby, and always full of rolls of beautiful, wonderful baby fat. My sister mentioned one day how she was “just a bucket of baby fat…” and the name Bucket has stuck ever since (she is now 7 and the skinniest girl you would ever see!). We often get interesting looks at her baseball games when we yell “Go Buckets!!”.
My daughter’s name is Sabina. We call her Bina, Bina-boo, Beans. Bina-boo is my favorite. She’s this funny little self assured 3 yrs old that will tell you if you ask what her name is to address her as “Miss Sabina”.
My son’s name is Emiliano and we call him Nano or Big Man E.
My son Thomas is T-Man, Thomasina (he’ll hate that one when he’s older) Puddin’ or Sweet Potato. My daughter Emerson is Emma-Lemma-Ding-Dong, Emster, Em, Peaches, or Emerson-Stop-Pulling-The-Dog’s-Tail! which is actually more of a command, but comes out of my mouth nearly as frequently as her name does.
I named my younger daughter Kathleen. She began calling herself “Mouse” at the grand old age of 18 months. She is now 23 and most people outside the family do not know the name that’s on her birth certificate.
.-= kayak woman´s last blog ..You’re so vain… =-.
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