The Significance of Nicknames

August 21st, 2006

I’ve often noticed that among the older generations there is a very high occurrence of life-long nicknaming. Paging through the obituary section one sees that practically every man is listed with his formal name as well as his nickname, like Robert “Hank” Smith, or Henry “Buddy” Jackson. The use of these life-long appellations seems to have faded with time, only reemerging as a strong cultural phenomenon with the mass popularization of the Internet.

I started to ask myself some questions to figure this out. Why were nicknames so ubiquitous two or three generations ago? And why did the use of life-long nicknames fade in the late twentieth century? More importantly, what is the significance of a nickname, and what do they mean today?

Names provide a way of distinguishing between people. Think how frustrating it is when someone you don’t know very well calls and opens with “Hi, this is Sarah….” Sarah who? With “H” or without? Of the five Sara(h)s I know, which one am I speaking with? I think the trend in America today is to shy away from giving our children names that are too common. One way around this is through novel spellings: Mikel instead of Michael, Jakob instead of Jacob, etc. Another popular trick is to convert a last name to a first name, which introduces a whole new world of available names. Parents who focus on originality in naming their children tend to be those who value independence and individuality the most. Other parents will spend less time trying to spin a new name and will instead opt for what’s most popular, reasoning that popular names give kids on the playground nothing to tease about.

Either way you look at it, nicknames provide an important outlet in societies where the pool of first names is not large enough. If every girl born in the U.S. today were named Betty, then it follows that practically everyone would have a nickname, thus negating the whole point of having a name as a distinguishing feature. One explanation for why nicknames were so popular in the past but have become less so recently is that the fund of available first names has increased, which in turn decreases the need for nicknames to distinguish between people. You might argue that if there were a master list of 100,000 first names, and each child born each year were assigned a name in order from the list, then nicknames would not be necessary. The chances of knowing two people with the same name would be too remote. However, there are other reasons for nicknames besides uniqueness.

Names communicate important information to others. The first thing you ask when meeting someone is: “What’s your name?” The moment they say that name you’ll make important judgments about the person. If it’s not already clear through visual cues, you’ll use the name to determine gender, ethnic origin, and possibly even age (think how many twelve year-old girls you know named Gertrude or Betty). We also attach “baggage” to a name. If you’re married with kids, you’ve probably been through the conversation with your spouse about names. It goes something like this:

Husband: I really like the name Joey.
Wife: Oh not Joey! My first boyfriend’s name was Joey and he turned out to be such a jerk.
Husband: Well, what do you suggest?
Wife: How about Bob?
Husband: I can’t tell you how many Bobs I’ve known, and every one of them has been a complete idiot. I’d never name my son Bob.

The important thing here is that given names represent what our parents wanted to project about us. At a bare minimum, parents choose a name that they hope won’t be a stumbling block in the child’s social progress. This can be something of a shot in the dark since parents usually aren’t well informed about names that will trigger a derisive response in other kids (I can still remember the kid named Konan at my scout camp—he was completely ostracized, all because his name recalled Konan the Barbarian).

The critical thing about nicknames is that they can be self-assigned. It’s usually safe to say that most people feel ambivalent about their given names. I have this perception about my first name: “James” to me is a formal name that conveys stiffness or some kind of academic snobbishness (I always think of James Watson from the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes). I also don’t like the fact that “James” is so short. In my mind, short names connote insubstantial characters. You’ll notice that some people (usually the well-to-do or successful) prefer to be formally called by their full names with the middle name spelled out or at least initialized. The assumption is that the longer the name, the more substantial the person. However, I haven’t yet come up with a satisfactory substitute for “James”. Jim is shorter still—and more insubstantial—and Jimmy is too juvenile. Jamie is ambiguous about gender, so that’s out too. I’m stuck! But if I’d been born seventy years I would have found a nickname totally unrelated to my given name.

I think one reason this life-long nicknaming occurred more frequently in the past was that people then were more interested in fitting in than we are today. Our current culture celebrates the individual, teaching us that to be different is to be alive, that we are all individuals who deserve to be valued for who we are. I am almost certain that this way of thinking has become much, much stronger over the last fifty years. Nicknames in my grandparent’s time would have been a way to become close to the group. Calling someone “Buddy” meant that he was included in your circle, and therefore valued. Nowadays, using a nickname like that might almost be taken as a mild insult, signifying that one’s given name is insufficient to establish one’s identity.

The current importance of nicknames on the Internet is an interesting phenomenon, because these nicknames are all self-assigned. Unlike my example of “Buddy”, my friends online have never decided as a group what my Internet moniker should be. Instead, I sit at the keyboard and think of all the cool names or phrases I could be known by, then choose one that suits me. In this way, nicknames have ceased to be a mechanism for acceptance into the group. Now, they are a way to exert one’s ego anonymously. I can pass as a hip skater complete with my own rock band if I have a cool online name and profile, even though I might be an overweight couch potato with no social skills. In fact, the raison d’etre for online names is more often a desire to conceal one’s true identity, rather than to clarify it: self-nicknaming through wishful thinking.

The only question I have left about nicknames is: what should mine be?