Lauren: Once, when I was slightly inebriated I treated my boy to a bit of freestyle rap whilst we lay in bed.
Don’t ask me why – the drunken mind works in mysterious ways. I should also point out here that I was banned from joining the school choir not once, not twice, but three times! I don’t remember the exact lyrics to my rap (I think my conscious mind has chosen to block out the cringeworthy experience) but I’m told that somewhere in there was the line ‘white stilettos in the ghettos’ – note to self: don’t give up the day job.
The finishing touch to my musical masterpiece was… wait for it…’Yo coconut’.
And that has been the boy’s pet name for me ever since.
It’s…um…unusual. One of a kind you might say.
Names are a funny thing aren’t they. They define you as a person, your identity and your interactions with your nearest and not so dearest.
I was named after Lauren Bacall – named after her by my mum in the hope that I would inherit some of her no-nonsense attitude with regards to men. You’ll have to ask my boy but I think Ms Bacall’s feistiness has rubbed off on me just a little bit…
You might be wondering where this is all leading to.
Let me explain.
Whilst Charlotte, Adam and I battled with constructing flat-pack furniture at RMW HQ this week, I started to talk about names – impending nuptials do that to you – and I mentioned that I don’t actually like being called Lauren.
It’s not the name so much, it’s the formality of it. In fact, it makes me feel like I’m being told off by my mum. Adam actually prefers Lauren but I’ve always been more of a “Lolly” or “Lol” and that’s only the start of the proliferation of names that I seemed to have acquired over the years.
My nickname differs depending on who I’m with at the time; with friends I am anything from “Polly” all the way through to the more generic “Man”. My parents call me “Looby Lou”, “Lou Bear” or “La La”. I’m Lula to one sister, to the other I’m Sparkle, Tina Sparkle, due to my love of all things shiny and my similarities with that Strictly Ballroom dancer.
And whilst Yo Coconut is the boy’s top term of endearment he also resorts to the equally flattering “Hammy” (due to my hamsterish cheeks), “Tubbs”, “Shorty” or his recent favourite “FiFi” as a result of our newly engaged status.
I am slightly miffed that I didn’t get a middle name but with a surname like mine, it might have been slightly ridiculous. That said, my mum did toy with the idea of giving me Eve as a second name but that would have meant that my initials would have been LEGO.
I think it would have been immense. She didn’t.
Shame really, I could really have had fun with that…
Signing off
Lolly xx
Charlotte: I used to hate the name Charlotte – with a fierce passion. I wanted to be called Debbie for a long while (I think there was a Debbie on Blue Peter? or maybe in the Broom Cupboard with Andi Peters?!) and then Charlene….because it wasn’t that dissimilar to Charlotte and Kylie was my idol (It was the denim dungerees and the fact I fancied Jason Donovan…Shhh don’t tell anyone.)
At school I was Charlie for a while, not sure why – I never thought it really suited me to be honest, I simply wasn’t cool enough. One of my best friends Paul used to call me Scarlett (sometimes extended to Scarlett The Harlot…) and my Nana Lily has always called Charles. Yes as in the boys name.
At the grand old age of 17 I thought I had royally flunked my mock A-levels and arrived at my part-time job at Morgan (retail – a concession that sold various stretchy lycra and animal print numbers in House Of Fraser)…. pale faced and on the brink of tears. My then store manager Scott (he who wore more bronzer than Dale Winton) exclaimed in an optimistic chime “Daaarling it will be absolutely fine! look at your long blonde hair and generous chest! You could be a Playboy Bunny instead of going to University!”
Um….thanks.
(I think he meant well bless him.)
As a direct result my nickname was simply “Bunny”, in fact one of my favourite girls Maria still refers to me as the Bunny Girl or the alternative version of “Miss B” to this day.
When I first met my husband he always referred to me as “Perfect Girl” (Yeah I know – try living up to that) and then when he realised I wasn’t perfect (this didn’t take long obviously!) I became “little one” due to barely reaching his shoulders unless I wore killer heels.
A few years ago I ordered these seemingly amazing hair combs off of some American website, they promised to give you an extra huge beehive with literally no backcombing…. I know! Awesome!
Only they weren’t awesome at all, they were pants. They just looked like weird big cheap plastic tufts sticking out vertically from my purple-hued bonce.
James thought this was all kinds of hilarious, and upon trying to convince him (and myself) that they did indeed provide some sort of bouffant action I swiftly became known as “Bouffy” which then slowly evolved into “Bufty”…..and stands at this current moment as “My little Bufty Wife”.
He assures me this is a term of endearment – I’m not entirely convinced.
As it happens I no longer dislike my christian name, in fact I really quite like it. And I think I like it all the more now it is paired with my new found surname 
Big Bunny Girl Love
Charlotte (Bufty) O’Shea xxx
Adam: I never really had any nicknames when I was younger – Adam sometimes would be shortened to Ad. That’s about as crazy as it got. At my Highschool where the boys were called exclusively by their surname, Crohill would on occasion become Crowbar or Crowsplat.
At my previous job there was one guy that had about a million nicknames for everyone. To him I was Adsy, Adamski, ‘The A – Man’. Occasionally ‘The A Hole’ (if I’d annoyed him) and he even used to call me Vicro which originated from the number plate that I had on my Mini Cooper at the time.
It’s funny how your perception of names changes over time. I have a middle name that I used to keep firmly under wraps because I thought if it got out into the public domain then that would be how I’d be known from that day forth. Frank.
I must admit, at the grand old age of 31 I can firmly say that I love the name Frank now, it’s really cool and I wouldn’t actually mind at all if it was my first name. I was named Frank after my Granddad and that in its self is a total honour, but as a youngster I thought people would laugh at me if they found out. Strange that.
I am also pretty happy to be called Adam. I can’t really imagine being called anything else… it is strange to think that your parents are responsible for giving you this handle… this ‘identity’ but I think mine did pretty well. Thanks Mum and Dad
So – anyone want to share any nicknames, middle names or the name they wished they’d been given?
Please drop us a comment in the box below
Yours truly
Adam Frank Crohill.
Just snorted/spat my tea out at your ‘A-hole’ and ‘Vicro’ comments, Adam
Also loving the middle name – my Grandad was called Frank!!
Lauren – LEGO would have been epic initials!! Much like the guy who was head of discipline at my boarding school… v strict… ex-Army… His initials were PVC
Great post, guys!!
Oooo I used to hate my name! I really love it now though, makes you stand out I think
most of my friends and family call me Tabba – my sister couldn’t quite say ‘Tabitha’ when she was little and it seems to have stuck!
My full name is Tabitha Cherry Wood!!! I also used to hide my middle name but again, quite like it now. It’s named after my Great Grandad who I never got to meet. His nickname was Cherry due to his big round red nose, yes I know I was named after my Grandad’s nose, lovely
but I kinda like it now!
@Charlotte – I am also known to h2b as ‘little one’ cause I am quite literally the littlest one.
Oh my…nicknames! My real first name is Annéka – with the accent – and contrary to popular belief, I’m not named after Anneka (without the accent!) Rice – its worse. My dad had a crush on a German actress and her character’s name in this German soap was Annéka and as I am German-born, that’s the name I got given! Pair that with a Welsh middle name and Spanish surname and you get name hell! So at (my many) schools, I simply became Annie…which evolved into Anni. Most people still call me Anni. The Boy, however, had many a nickname for me, ranging from Little One to PSP (Public School Princess) to Haribobear (yes, I can eat a whole pack in one sitting, who can’t?!) to Hammy and the current favourite of Mini Dalek…though I can assure you I am not some weird metal alien!
@Lauren – your parents should SO have given you LEGO as your initials!
@Charlotte – We’ve decided to call our first daughter Charlotte!
@Adam – I love Frank!
xxxx
@Tabitha – That is like the best name ever – Tabitha Cherry! I love it!
@Anni – I like public school princess very much! – I am also Princess sometimes – especially when I am being petulant and pouty. Or I can’t get my own way.
Charlotte xxx
@ Charlotte you are not the only person with the delightful nickname of bufty! A friend of mine (a boy – he designs fabulous clothes steamers, is quite posh and a bit OTT – setting the scene) calls another male friend of ours Bufty. I’ve never worked out why, but he’s been calling him that for years.
I hated my name for years. I never met another one, I always had to spell it and correct pronunciation (its said as its spelled, not that hard) and spent 5 years working for someone who continually called me ‘imbull’, which is horrid!
However, now I LOVE it. Its all mine, if someone yells it down the street I know that its me who should turn around. And although all my siblings have sensible names, they’re just one of a crowd, and I’m special – or so my mum always tells me
Haha – love this!
I wish either Lee or ANY of my friends were creative enough for ‘Yo Coconut’, ‘Bufty’ or ‘Adamski’, but I get the cringingly cutesy ‘Baby Swales’ from Lee (because he knows how it winds me up) or, plain old ‘Swaley’ from the rest of the world.
I have to say though, Lee calls me Hyacinth at EVERY opportunity… as in, “Bucket residence, lady of the house speaking”
FURY
xxx
When I was at school I didn’t smile very much, so I was knicknamed Smiler, still very occasionally get referred to as that. As I hung around with boys, they all call each other by their surname so I was just ‘Austin’
Then my best friend, called me Hels, Hels Bels, Helenback, helenhighwater, helenmunchengladback……oh and Melons!!
Then I went to uni, and I became Haircut Helen and Helen Welen.
Now I’m just plain Helen, or Hels. The boy and I just call each other stupid names that have no relevance to anything really!!
@Charlotte – Thanks
it’s a bit of a little girls name though.
Btw ‘Perfect Girl’ aaaaaaaaaaaawwww! xxx
I was actually christened Charlotte but I have never been called Charlotte so at 18 I changed my name by Deed Poll. Now I think I would make quite a good Lottie!
My nickname is Sweetpea, which I love but ‘little one’ too as I am 5ft2 and Mr H is 6ft7
Forgot to add – my nickname has always been Bally. Don’t know why, but over the years its got extended and changed. Often referred to as ballywalldoodle, there was even a little song at one stage (long, long, looooooooong ago) which started ‘ballywallydoodle all the day….’. I kid you not.
Awww I also have a middle name I used to hate……Freda…..I used to get the mickey taken out of me for it so pretty much kept it under wraps! It was actually my grandma’s name but I never met her (she died the year before I was born) so now I’m older I appreciate it more and am less ashamed of it in fact I might say I’m chuffed it’s my middle name!
As for nicknames my uni friends (this incl. my h2b) decided one night to call me ‘Chutney’ & it’s stuck!!! In fact Dave has managed to get our local friends to also call me this!
We’re not entirely sure where it came from – we think it was Dave & another friend’s development from Whitney (my surname – yes, yes….enough of the Whitney Housten jokes!) as we all called each other by our surnames out uni!
And this is probably the most common name Dave calls me around the house – in fact only the other morning he was serenading me from the shower with songs where he’d replace words with the name ‘Chutney’!!!!
Also Dave & some of his work colleagues call me Becmania!!! (which is probably my fav! but shhh don’t tell Dave that!)
@Lauren – LEGO, that would’ve been amazing! My dad knows someone who named their son so his initials are JCB!
@Tabitha – Tabitha Cherry…..that’s the best! I love it!
xx
My middle name is Cecil! And yes I am a girl! I’ve been told that my Great Grandma called herself Cecil. Having Cecil as a middle name has made me a stronger person (kids can be cruel!) and I find it funny. There was a bit of a chuckly when the vicar said my full name at our wedding and my friend actually said it was one of the best thing about me! (I’m hoping there are other things as well). The one bonus was that some lovely silver spoons in the family with Cecil on them were given to me when I got married. yay
I love the name Rebecca but as there were two of us at school, friends simply dropped that and called me ‘Bish’ (my surname- which I HATED at the time) but now I love it!
I’m getting married in 2 months and happily taking Adams surname, but insisting my friends still call me Bish- this has caused a few cross words between Adam and my friends as he is demanding they stop after September 8th !! I’m demanding they don’t.
Adam calls me Dolly. Because apparently, I look like a dolly. X
When I was really little, I couldn’t say my full name, so actually called myself Sharsh*t! Then I was Lottie for a bit, then Chaz (hated this!) and when I moved to a new school, someone asked if I was a Charlotte or a Charlie, and I quite fancied being Charlie.
I’ve recently gone off ‘Charlie’, as combined with my last name (Smith), I think it sounds like a boy. I now prefer Charlotte again (which sounds much nicer with my soon-to-be surname), but gets confusing sometimes as everyone calls me different names! The boy calls me ‘bear’, which I quite like.
My boss likes nicknames, so in the last week alone, I have been ‘Smithy’, ‘Screecher’ (which I hate, but is a variation of my new surname) and ‘Queenie’ (he thinks I’m posh).
I worry this might lead to split personalities at some point…
LEGO would have been epic though!!
I love nicknames! I used to hate them because it’s so easy to make fun of my name when I was little – Madeleine. Cue all the “Mad” jokes. Mad Lyn. Mad Woman. Mad Creature.
It’s grown on me over the years.
Fiance just calls me the usual – sugar pie, sugar plum, honey bun, baby cakes, but I love what his family call him. Cinnamon Bun. His name is Simon so I don’t know how they got to that particular name but there you have it. He LOVES it when I bring that name up in front of his guys ;o)
His family all have nicknames with one of his sisters Jane, being called “Nony Pony Henny Penny Chicky Licky Tistle Tat”. Who. Knows.
Because he’s Irish, he’s often known as Paddy which our friends think is hilarious because our names rhyme, and they mix our names up so we’re now on lots of phones and written in cards as “Padeleine & Madeleine”. Crazy times.
One of my besties, KitKat, calls me Mandolin after someone misheard my name years ago, she’s always found it hilarious. Particularly as she sings it whenever she says my name.
My mum, dad and sisters call me Lally or Blabaleep after the fact my sisters couldn’t say my name when they were babies. My sisters are in turn Pillar (Phillippa) and Bong Chong (Annabel) or Owbow.
Some of my old uni friends call me Mad Creature (with one friend going so far as putting my landline in as “Mad Creature’s nest”).
My surname is often mispronounced (Treharne Jones) which leads to the creation of nicknames. Terrance is my particular favourite, but I also answer to Jones, Jonesy, Miss Jones (only ever said in Rising Damp-style), “Have You Met Miss Jones” (sung only natch).
Not sure my parents thought it through when calling me Helen with the surname Bell. For years I hated being Hells Bells but now with my last 12 weeks with this name I feel quite sad to be losing it. Sure I will still get called it though. I am still smelly to my sister (rhymes with Helly not that I never use the shower)
On another note struggled with a few years at school not knowing why someone kept writing ‘end’ after my name on schoolwork up on walls?!
My first name is actually double barrelled (Lynsey-Anne but only my gran called me that!) so my boy doesn’t have a nickname for me, instead he sings the Branvan 3000 song “Drinking in LA” at me… Especially the line “LA, LA, L L A, LA”! Haha x
At school I didn’t really have nicknames as my name isn’t readily shortened. We had a phase where we all had poo-related nicknames and I got ‘Hannah Two-Poo’ which has a nice ring to it. I always wanted to marry a man with a surname beginning with H so that my initials would be HRH
. Incidentally, thanks to this post I just googled my fiance’s nickname for me, “Federico Hernandez”, which came about on our first holiday together in Mexico. I have discovered that I am a real person and I am the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico. So he’d better behave.
I actually really like my name (other than for a short period when I was 17 after a friend’s mum called my Lydia Chlamydia! I was mortified!!!!) Anyhoo, apart from that have always liked my name and have either been Lydia or Lyds. Secretly I’ve always wanted to have a nickname but none have stuck! Several friends still call me by my maiden name – which I love and try to encourage as much as possible! As it is very unusual and my new name is boring old Watson! Urgh!!
(FYI: Giving up my name felt like a HUGE deal before the occasion, but after I realised there are very few occasions when I really think about what my name is it didn’t bother me any more!)
The husband calls me any number of things – Lu Lu is the most common as my mum used to call me Liddi Lou Lous (?!) which he found hilarious, then there is “Boobaloo”, “Boobalay”, “Trouble” shortened often to “Troubs” or “Troubaloo”…Hm, writing it down makes it seem weird!!!
@Liz – Cecil?! That is awesome!!! I want a cool middle name!
@Lynsey – Mine’s not double barrelled but my Mum used to call me Charlotte-Ann!!! when I misbehaved (Ann is my Mums christian name so it’s nice that I have it too)
@SoontobeMrsG – All kinds of genius.
Charlotte xxx
My first name is incredibly common. At one point there were four of us in the same Maths class in secondary school. It got confusing!
My best friend one day decided that my name should be minkel. No idea where he got it from but it stuck. From that point on I was minkel to all our friends and his family and anyone new we met. I would introduce myself as Michelle but somehow I would still end up as Minkel!
My family have always called me Shell (which I hate) and h2b calls me this despite knowing I hate it. The only people who make me smile when they say it are my nieces. They’re so darn cute when they say it and demanding they battle with learning to say Michelle is a bit too diva.
My twin actually started called me Mitch and Mich, which I though I d be against but it suits my tomboy.
Of course being a twin I have grown up answering to someone else’s name and being reffered to as Twins whenever we were in the same room or in the house at the same time. My parents still do it! even though we live in different ends of the UK I still answer to my twin’s name and will turn whenever I hear her name or Twins.
H2b is an Andrew. Yet another common name. He is however known to EVERYONE as Macca. He was originally known to me as Macca and remained so for about 6 years. Once the dynamics changed and we were a couple and not just friends through his sister it didn’t feel right to call him Macca and so he is Andrew. Which having always known him as Macca and being the only one in our circletoaddress and refer to him as this is kind of anicknamein itself.
Love this post!!
Growing up my name never really got shortened until I was a teenager when i became known more as Charlie or Cheeky which i didnt mind and would answer to most things other than Lottie!
Because Charlotte was quite unusual when and where I grew up i quite liked it but always wanted a more exotic surname as that was quite common so couldnt wait to get married to change it. Then I met my H2B Mr Smith!!!
My nicknames from the boy are Monkey Chops and Googleybear from Monsters inc. which make me smile!
I think that Mr & Mrs Bell knew exactly what they were doing when they named her Helen.
Seeth is a name that stuck for me… short for “Sid Seeth” because I slurped and seethed so much when I was teething. Apparently.
Not quite the same subject, but I’m ridiculously excited about changing my last name, which is Smith. It’s commonness (alongside my first name I mean) has caused me so many problems over the years – being given the wrong GCSE results, being told I didn’t get a job when in fact I did, getting mixed up at the doctors etc etc… I’m sure after the couple of years of having to spell/pronounce my new name (Tulloch), I will miss Smith!
Names are so weird – I’m another one who hated her name when younger – it was just way too cutesy and little girl (I thought), I was desperate to be called Natasha for some reason… I like it now though, even if there are still always parents shouting it across shopping centres
It also lends itself to nicknames – Em, Ems, Elmsilie (my friend Ali, the weirdo) and I was always Emmy to my lovely grandpa.One of my middle names is Patricia which did lead one ex-boyf to call me ‘Paaaaaat’ in v bad Eastenders voice…
Then at uni I was christened Stan (South Park reference; vomit related incident…) which REALLY stuck, ten years later all my student pals still call me nothing else – I am expecting a heap of wedding cards addressed to Stan and Mr H!
Mr H doesn’t really call me anything except for ‘baby’ which is boring, I will demand that he invents something better. Though my name for him (and I have no idea why, but I cannot stop using it) is Poo, so maybe I should be happy that baby is where he’s stopped!
Never really had any nicknames at school (there were probably some cruel ones tho that I didn’t know about!). I always moaned that my parents called me something so boring but I’m named after my great-great-grandma so I do like that bit.
At work I used to be Blondie due to my hair but when I dyed it brown they were a bit stumped. Currently I get called Legs as one day I complained I couldn’t fit my legs under the table they’d given me and I needed a proper desk instead, or Miss July
My sister and I have a million and one pet names for each other (including Louby Lou, Popsy, Lumpkin) and some of these spill over into pet names for hubby. Most of the time he gets called Angel and he calls me the same.
Hubby and I have discussed kids names (if we have any) but he’s not keen on my first choice for a girl as her initials would be TLC – I think it’s kinda cute but he disagrees!
@Lauren – LEGO would have been amazing!
@Charlotte – I think Bunny is a cool nickname to have!
@Adam – Also lovin the Frank. When I first met Hubby all his mates called him Frankie so I thought that was his name. Apparently it was their weird rhyming slang – Frankie Vaughn=Shaun
xx
I think even after I become ‘Mrs Lloyd’ (eeeeek seems weird just writing that) in a mere 6 weeks & 1 day, I will never be anything other than ‘mad dog Barker’ to my boy at heart thou he does sometimes threaten to give me the moniker ‘mrs piles’ after w-day (get it dear readers????) I hope he sticks to the former………
I hate my name. It’s SO BORING. I really regret not changing to some permutation of my middle name (Elizabeth) when I went to uni – prime time for a name change. I could’ve been Libby, or Beth. But it’s too late now. The most I’ve managed to deviate is getting some people to call me Annie. Seriously, there are so many lovely, interesting pretty names in the world and my parents picked Anne. Yeech.
It does lend itself well to nicknames, mind. My friends call me Annie, Annabel and Annbelina, among other things!
My husband and I call each Spookhead. I have no idea why.
My maiden name was Harris which combined with Kate as a first name is possibly one of the most commons names I seem to have come across – there’s hundreds of us! So I was very excited to swap a fairly boring name for Hampden-Smith when we got married.
In fact I even (jokingly) threatened to Tim that I was going to triple-barrel it so that when we got married I would be Mrs Harris-Hampden-Smith! Which then went on to become Fancypants-Harris-Hampden-Smith-dahhling (which I secretly love)!
As for nicknames Tim decided to start calling me his wench (this stuck for a long time and even friends caught onto it) and which has now evolved (no idea how or why) into the ever-so lovely wench-holes. Even valentines cards are addressed to wench-holes…..
I retaliated and now fondly refer to him as Buttmunch!
Erm, I’m literally just through the door from Ibiza and whilst sticking my head down the toilet and lying in a darkened room until Monday morning should be my priority…I need my RMW fix!!!!!!!!!!!!! So much to catch up on!!!!!!!!
I am named after my Aunty Pamela so whilst Pamela is, lets face it, a dinner lady’s name…I kinda like it….I’ve also just become an aunty and my own Aunty Pam sent me a text, while walking round Tesco, that made me burst into tears, ‘Welcome to the Aunty Pam club, it’s the best in the world and only the fabulous need apply. You’re going to be great.’
Pamela – I reckon at 56 I will have grown into it.
The Big C calls me Plumbo…one of my best friends is a Suebo, I am her Pambo and the Big C changed it to Plumbo cause when we met I had plum coloured hair. Odd.
Ooo LEGO as initials woud have been amazing !
I have had lots of nicknames, one that really stuck at my last job was spike and by the time I left I could quite believe there were people who didnt know my real name as it got rather universally adopted, when i met himself (at that job) he decided to wind me up calling me a “bit of fluff” which totally stuck with him and these days im even “fluff” to some of his family, thankfully its grown on me rather and I no longer mind it.
Ooh also my mum calls me Blob – think I possibly have the worst nicknames ever!!
I love finding out other people’s nicknames, I think it says a lot about you.
I have had many over the years from the affectionate label of ‘Ginger Ninja’ from one particular friend at school to Jo Blows (the unfortunate surname of an ex-boyfriend which to this day I am still introduced to people as by my uni friends – CRINGE!!) and on to the new various nicknames my fiance and I have given eachother (bean, beansprout, pingbean, pinguin – almost penguin but not).
Wow – you lovely ladies have got some weird and wonderful names! Don’t you just love how they evolve over time and become more and more elaborate…
@Anni Welsh, German AND Spanish sounds totally exotic and I’m utterly jealous!
@Liz, Cecil is an epic middle name! I also like the sound of the silver spoons too!
@LadyFuschia TLC is so cute! Hammer your hubby into submission!
@Charlie I call my baby sister Monkey Chops too. Not sure where it came from though…
@Madeleine I just love your full name. It’s so beautiful.
Keep them coming lovelies xx
I am having a quick spy on here whilst sipping some vino and waiting for the husband to finish our last meal on holiday. Sad times. Sidenote, Devon is an awesome holiday place.
Names, I used to hate my name, it’s so wordy…Alexandra.Even worse combined with Pamela as a middle name…after my mum. There were muchos stifled laughter on my siblings part whilst saying it out loud in our wedding vows. I used to tell other kids in the park I was called Shauni…her off of baywatch who rode her horse on the beach.
Now i love my name, and have done since realising that it was quite rare to bump into another Alexandra. I obviously now just use Alex at work and with friends. My family don’t like it, they call me anything from Al, Algy, or just my full name. My husband loves my name. He does however tend to call me Kidder, Gorgey or Pea (shortened from sweetpea and my middle initial).
I never had any nicknames at school though, one of the guys at work always calls me Alexis…not my name but doesnt worry me that much.
So, back to my vino and sad last night on hols! Loving everyones stories!xx
Also I’ve just been reminde by my father not to forget my ski nick name of The Bat which is slightly better then my sisters of The Moos
@Pamela – Oh is that a new Ibiza Gravatar?! you look HOT!
And I know I shouldn’t laugh but…..my favourite dinner lady at School was in fact called Pamela
She was lovely!
@Alex – Love Alexandra, it is so dramatic and fancy!
Charlotte xxx
Names are great… especially nicknames and thinking about where they come from. (Actually that’s just my slight obsession with words, I’m intrigued by place names too.)
Ruby’s a nickname that only my sisters really use, developed slowly over time through lengthening and shortening… my real name’s Rebecca, and that’s plenty good enough for everyday use. My little sister (known as B or Little B, from Bethany, Beth, Little Beth…) still often calls me Ruby Tuesday, while my older sister (Jess, that’s a simple one) just uses Ruby. I’m also occasionally known as Becca, and have in the past answered to Beccles, Eccles, Bex, Bun, Bunyip, Rhubarb, Rhubarb Wrecker, Ribena and Rubydoo.
Peter adds -cat to the end of both my sisters names when he talks about them (making them Bethcat and Jesscat) and my parents are affectionately known as Monki and Badger (and this, they have decided, is what grandchildren will also know them as). Little B’s boyfriend is often referred to as Beardy D, though I don’t know if he knows that.
Peter and I call each other Monkey as well, which sometimes gets confusing. Mostly though I think we just string together words for cute things until we’re satisfied – Kittenbunny, Monkeyrabbit, Monkeykittenspoon, Bananamousekeys… I think you probably get the picture. Sometimes it can end up weird though.
This is a huge secret so shhhh don’t tell anyone but me and my boy have the weirdest nicknames for each other…. I bought him a big fat italian recipe book for a present once and we were browsing through it and came across a recipe for ‘beef cheeks’. YUCK right? Around the same time we watched ‘me myself and irene’ and at one point jim carrey calls renee zelwegger Cheese Tits.
So.. we are beef cheeks and cheese tits. But only in private – no-one else knows this!!!!
My wee brother used to call me Bindy – anyone with any clue of how you get that from fiona let me know.. and of course I am regularly fi, fifi, feefs and fifa.. I used to hate my name because all my friends were called sarah or kate and i wanted to fit in (by having the same name?! madness).. but I like it now, maybe it takes time to grow into these things? Love hearing everyones names, how cute! x
I have a range of weird nicknames! At school my friends started called me Ichigo (or Ichi for short) for some unknown reason, and it was only a few months later we discovered it was Japanese for strawberry!
To my oldest friend’s family I’m Snic-the-Bic. I was a really skinny child and her Dad was so shocked when I ate two wheetabix for breakfast I was given the name, along with a drawing of a stick-person with a big wheetabix shape sticking out it’s tummy!
My family sometimes shorten my name to Nic, but I’ve never been Nicky.
Me and H2B don’t have proper nicknames for each other, they tend to be whatever first comes to mind. We often call each other baby and I call him sweetie, and at the moment he sometimes calls me ‘my little sassafrass’ (something he mis-read off a French menu) and I call him dingleberry when he’s annoying me!
I do have a tendency to give people odd names, including one friend called Roland who is now Roly McPolington!
Eek where do I start with nicknames! Nobody not even my mum and dad call me Hannah:
So Jon calls me gorge, his friends thought he was calling me George so that’s stuck!
Other friends call me parmanator (surname is parman!), work call me p-dizzel, dad calls me dill, mum – hanny, jons mum – miss hanny (from when I used to teach ballet to three year olds and that’s what they called me!) other nicknames include p-brain, doughnuts, hannahbanana, parmatron… The list goes on! Xx
@Pamela – I have an Aunty Pam (who isn’t a relation but basically my second mum). AUNTY PAMs ROCK xx
Oh I love this post!
My name at birth was Michelle however my dad when i was about 4 nicknamed me Ollie (after olive oil from Popeye apparently I used to stamp my feet like her. Still do!)
This name stuck and everybody has always called me it apart from my mum she doesn’t like it but then she doesn’t really like my dad anymore either.
I hated the name Ollie growing up I used to want to die a little bit when my family would say it in front of my friends but as I’ve got older I have embraced it and now I don’t feel like a Michelle at all.
The story gets even more strange because my fiancé soon to be husband is also called Ollie! Yes we have had all the jokes many times and I guess we always will.
Oh well… It can always be worse. Or can it! :-/
Love this post and all the replies!
My Mum had a few nicknames for me when I was younger: “Say-bay”, “Sarey-Barey”, “Whey=Whey” (the latter was my own mispronounciation of my name when I was little. I don’t have a speech impediment, honestly!).
I never really had nicknames through school, apart from one person who would refer to me as “Haras Krik” (my name and maiden surname backwards). I always thought I would get “Kirky” as I followed my brother through the school and this was always his nickname, but surprisingly nobody really used this for me.
My husband has numerous nicknames for me, including “Princess” (when he’s feeling particularly affectionate, or, when he wants something
), “Chopstick” (this originated from “cheeky chops”), “SK”/”Skirky”/”Skay-Skay” (all stemming from my original surname and initials).
My best friend at University was also a Sarah, and used to be called “Bear” by her best friend, so this was our nickname for each other through our uni years. I am now in her phone as “Berty” as my married name is Schubert!
(On an aside, one of my patients at work today asked me if my surname was pronounced Schu-bert (sounding the ‘t’) or ‘Schu-bear’ (with a silent ‘t’) – did make me chuckle, like bucket or ‘bouquet’. I told him I was Schu-bear when feeling exotic!
I’m much less creative for my other half, and Elliot is simply “El-Bel” to me. However he has been known as Schubes and Schubeedoo because of his surname.
I will however mention our numerous nicknames for our pets! I’m sure I’m not the only one with crazy names for my furry four-legged friends:
Our Ginger cat is creatively known as…. “Ginger” (I know, you’re bowled over by our imagination!!). However, as she originally belonged to somebody else, and had been called “Garfield” (despite being a girl), we had to rename her when she came to live with us, so she became “Ginger Rogers”. However, she will also answer to “La Ginge”, “Garfunkle”, “La Funk”, and my favourite, “Gingus Khan”!
We have two other cats, Lola (aka “Lolly”, “Lolster”, “Lolly-Puss”, “Miss Lolly”, “Lola-May”; and Cleo (aka “Cle-Cle”, “Pretty-girl”, “Cle-meister”).
Anybody else want to share their nicknames for their pets?
Whey-Whey
xx
Forgot to add mine and hubby-to-be’s nicknames for each other: Pumpkin and Honey Bunny (from the diner scene in Pulp Fiction).
To be totally honest, it really upsets me how much I hate my name. I find it so boring and, well, old. There are so many beautiful names I’d rather have – I have serious name envy of some of you. Ruby, Emily, Charlotte, Lauren… I’m looking at you!
Yo Coconut rocks, by the way. PLEASE release a single called that.
Aw I always wanted to be a Charlene as well (my how times change).
Growing up I never had any crazy names I was Lou and that was it. However since leaving school my friends flitted between Little Lou (5ft 3) and Looby Lou. I am now know affectionately known to them as Looby. Work people referred to me as Cartier (Before MRS M I was Carter) For some reason they thought I was posh (lol, I have no idea how they came to that conclusion!). They are currently trying to think of a new one, although I always quite liked it.
I am meeting up with friends tonight and think this will make a good topic of conversation, thanks xx
I’ve had numerous nicknames over the years but I’m currently without one at my newish job and I feel a bit lost without it!
My first was Ace, which my Dad called me when I was little. Not really sure why but I didn’t mind it.
Through my art college year one of the boys came up with Manbanda after seeing a tv programme with some sort of african tribe lady in named something similar and was quickly adopted by all my classmates. This was then adapted to Onemanbanda and then due to my erm…busy social life (!) became Manymanbanda!
After college I worked for 8 years with my friend Liddy (aka Elizabeth) who had a best friend called Helen that she nicknamed Melon. So when she came up with the nickname Mango for me we figured it was based along the same fruit-type theme! There was no other real explanation for it but it stuck and became very popular!
This was and is one of my favourite nicknames and people still call me it now. It was adopted by everyone I worked with even to the point where, when new employees where being introduced to all the staff, I was introduced as Mango – which always to lead to puzzled expressions and a re-introduction with my real name!
Mango had several permutations in itself, so I also became Mangee, Mangs or just Mang – so it was very adaptable!
My best friend calls me Mandaluna and Luna which is lovely but as I mentioned at the start I’m in a relatively new job and as yet don’t have a new nickname which after all my years as Mango I do really miss!
Oooh, love this post and loving reading the comments! My nicknames don’t seem very odd at all now!
My parents used to call me Loubi Lou (big ‘watch with mother’ fan!) which my mum somehow turned into ‘Loulabelle’–I’ve always quite liked that as it sounds quite fairy princess-y
At school I was ‘Ginger’ for a very long time (due to my hair colour) to the point where my highschool best friend couldn’t remember my real name!
As for the boyf, we don’t exactly have nicknames for each other, we just pronounce each others names weirdly! He calls me ‘Lou eeeeze!’ making his voice go high on the ‘eee’ part, and I call him ‘Adaum’ (his name is adam)… because we sometimes (most of the time) speak to each other in weird voices–but everyone does that, right??
I think Louise might be one of the nicknamiest girls’ names ever – my name has been messed about with so much over the years I answer to most things now! My dad started it when I was tiny, ‘Lou’, ‘Lulu’, ‘Lulubelle’ ‘Lula’, ‘Luly’ etc. When the Fast Show was popular and I was in high school I got a lot of ‘Squeezy Cheesy Peas Louise’, and I have a friend who occasionally calls me ‘Weezy’ for reasons best known to himself. I’m mostly Lou these days although some people in work have their own versions, including the ubiquitous ‘Lulu’ and the more random ‘Tallulahbelle’!
It’s also a very easy name to mishear over the phone – when I worked in a call centre it was variously misheard as Bernice, Denise, Clarice, Shanice, Lucy, and ‘Ouise’ (by a slightly deaf old gent)!
I was always tickled by the fact that about 90% of my friends had Louise as a middle name – it seems to be one of those that goes well after most names. My middle name is Mary and I always kind of hated the combination, but over the last few years I’ve grown to appreciate my name – it’s quite classic and doesn’t ‘belong’ to any particular generation.
@Charlotte – I have a cousin called Charlotte but she was born around the time that Charlie perfume was really popular. Apparently one of the nurses on the maternity ward wore it and nicknamed her Charlie when she was about 2 days old – she’s now 34 and has never been anything but Charlie!x
I’m a Lauren as well (duh), and I never really liked my name. I also never had a nickname, other than the odd person calling me “Loz” (which I hated and still don’t particularly like), until about two years ago. At that point, one of my wonderful group of frfiends started calling me Lozzapops, and it’s stuck amongst those girlies ever since. And I LOVE having a nickname now! It gets shortened to Pops and Poppers, and the boy has even jumped on the bandwagon now, and calls me either Lolpop, Popsicle, or Pops.
What I really hate is people calling me Laura – THAT’S NOT MY NAME!!
I once turned around at school thinking that someone had called my name. They hadn’t. They had said the word ‘Carrots’. Cue my name for the following FIVE YEARS!
The boy calls me various names: little one, silly tilley (that’s my surname), housekeeper. Unfortunately I accidentally answer to all of them!
I am loving some of the nicknames above.
I have always loved my names – Helen Grace. I wasn’t named after anyone but the initials HGH were chosen because of a relative on my Dads side with those initials who had a lot of monogrammed items that I have since inherited. I love the fact that they are easy to spell and short,and when paired with my surname that is always a bonus – I spend most of my time explaining “its spelt with a U not an E and yes I know that is unusual!” only to watch the other person still write it with an E!
Despite how much I love my name I think I have had the most ridiculous list of nicknames ever; Helz, Nelly, Hells Bells, Hel, Melon, Herry, Harry, Harold, Henry (yes most of these relate to my name – but Henry is what they all sang at my 18th birthday, much to the confusion of the staff in the restaurant!). Then edging away from the name related ones I have been Elmo, Duncan (as in PJ and Duncan – all because my best friend name rhymed with Pyjama, which was shortened to PJ hence me being Duncan!), Tids, Tiddly, Squirt (not because I am short, but because I was the youngest girl in the family for quite a while), Triple H, Plum, Velociraptor and Veloci-Plum.
But my favourite will always be the one assigned to me by my h2b – Hunny Bee. Probably because I call him Pooh Bear!
As one of five sarahs in my class at school, nicknames were unfortunately inevitable. My best friend christened me sharon (well to be precise, it was sharon karen otterwellyboots….but now thats only reserved for special occassions!)
My other half refers to me as “elfy”, or more often than i would like, “silly elf” as a result of my sticky out ears and a few years ago, my tendancy to get called galadriel by total strangers in pubs. Combo of ears plus long blonde hair i guess!!
The other half already has too many nicknames…
As a child, I felt my name didn’t allow me to ‘fit in’ with all the other kids of the 80s/90s. I wanted to be called Sarah, Rebecca or Laura – not Celia.
When I was 13 I went on holiday with my best friend. For the whole weekend we pretended my name was Emma (in the hope it may make me more appealing to boys!)
These days I mostly get called Celie, CiCi or Cecil by my friends. For some reason guys (never girls) always sing that dreadful ‘Cecilia’ song to me. And I occasionally get mistaken for Delia, Julia or Serena.
My other half is also an Adam. He calls me Lace, I called him Ads or Addie. I’m very grateful to my mum for giving me a classic name, and for the two middle names I have – poor Adam doesn’t have any!
@Charlotte – I am sooooo pleased that I was not the only ‘Charlotte’ growing up who tried to get people to call me Charlene. I wore dungarees so I looked like Kylie in her Neighbours mechanic phase and once (sigh am I about to admit this….) went to a friend’s birthday party with a black straw hat on my head, with the top cut out and my hair piled through – a la the “kylie” album sleeve CRINGE!!! Nowadays folk have started calling me Lottie, but to most I’m simply Charlotte. Perhaps, I’ll start the Charlene campaign again – now where did I put that hat…..
When I was growing up in lovely Kilmarnock I was generally refered to as Annie Fan*y…lovely!! And I was only 5 at the time, charming! From then on I hated my name, but now rather like it
The only other nicknames I’ve had are from boyfriends (niemo, nie (said like ‘knee)) and family (Annipops or Andypox because my little cousin couldn’t say Anniepops!).
H2B and I call eachother Bobby (long story but long and short is because we find the nickname ‘Baby’ creepy), buttmunch, kn*bber…not the most romantic but hey…it suits us
Names… where to start?! I was born on Christmas Day, hence the first name. I hated it when I was younger but it doesn’t really bother me now. Although it does bother me when people spell it “Hollie”. A little girl I used to babysit for actually spelled it “hol-e”, which naturally led to my closest friends calling me “Hole”, which can be quite embarrassing when shouted out across the pub!
My middle name is… wait for it… Lovelace. It’s a family thing, and nothing to do with Linda!! My mum, Aunty, sisters and even my poor uncle are saddled with the name, again which I used to detest! I heard all sorts in school (“let me undo your lovelaces” – classy!), but now I have fully embraced it and intend to pass it on to my daughters, should I be lucky enough to have any
My surname isn’t particularly unusual, but it has been misheard/misspelled on a number of occasions, so I have been called the following:
Holly Vulture
Holly Wilsthree
Holly Wiltsh*te
And the one that has led to my fiancé’s favourite nickname for me…
Holly Wheelchair. Aka “Wheely”. Or Ball Head, because apparently my head is very round…
When we get married, I’d be Coleman, which I thought would get me out of any nicknames, but a friend of mine has already come up with one; HolCol, which very quickly (after, ironically, too many glasses of vino!) AlColHol. How very apt!