Nicknames

I am a person of nicknames. Have you ever seen the TV show Lost? If so, you know the character, Sawyer. Like this character, I like to give out nicknames, but unlike him, I only give them to people I like or care about, and usually they have nothing to do with the way the person looks or acts. There is only one exception to my rule and that is my mother. Firstly because I don't think she is big on being called anything other than some form of mother, and secondly because a nickname for her never sprung to mind. She is too proper for one. Everyone else in my life I care about, however, has anywhere from one to a dozen or so.

I do need to add a caveat here. I care about a great many people whom I do not give nicknames simply because I am not comfortable enough with them to do so. Would I rescue them from a burning building? Absolutely. But I am not on enough of a friendly level with them to hand out a badge of Saige-bestowed honor.

Let's take for example, my baby. How many nicknames could one baby have, you ask. My answer is many. I call her: munchkin, munchkie, munchk, munchy munchk, tweet pea, sweet pea, babsie, sugar, sugar boogar, as well as many variations on her name. I realize that some of them are variations on the same name, but they are nicknames nonetheless.

I never understood why parents wanted to name their children something that couldn't be shortened into a nickname. It takes away the ability to create something a little more intimate in your relationship with them. My husband's mother was one of those people. I showed her though. My husband has a range of nicknames himself: sexy beast, hot stuff, and sweetie are just a few.

Coworkers and close friends usually only get one to two nicknames, and I have to have a friendship with my coworkers that I feel comfortable giving them a nickname. One of my teammates at work has his PhD, so I call him Dr. Butchie. Another went through a phase where he was trying to grow his hair out for his girlfriend that made him look like characters from movies and cereal boxes, earning him the nicknames Rufio and Count Chocula.

Before my grandmother died a couple of years ago, I used to call her Granny B. I didn't realize that the name had a different meaning to her than it did to me until one day she asked why I called her that. I told her it was because she was always baking goodies and it reminded me of Granny B's cookies. You know, the sugar cookies with pink frosting and sprinkles. She got the biggest smile on her face and seemed to be really pleased with being called Granny B after that. When I thought on it, I realized she thought I was calling her Granny #2, as opposed to Granny A, or #1 Granny.

Do you assign nicknames to people, or are you anti-nickname?