As we move through childhood into adolescence and on to adulthood we share several common experiences. There are certain elements of growing up that are inevitable for almost everyone. Best friends; bullies; playground fights; locker room embarrassments; hook ups and break ups; and, of course, nicknames.
Like it or not, nicknames are a part of life, especially between the ages of 8 and 18. For every John, Susan, and Steve; there is a Boner, a Bucky, and a Jughead. Nicknames can be offensive, humorous, observant, or just plain hurtful; sometimes all of the above.
I grew up with nicknames, from infancy to elementary school through high school and into adulthood. I’ll share the ones I remember. Let’s start with family names.
I guess the logical place to start is the first nickname I remember. Rubber Duck. I cannot remember a time when my granddad did not call me Rubber Duck. My best recollection of the origins… well, I think I had a rubber duck as a baby that I loved. Whatever the reasons, it stuck. He still calls me that today.
As I got older, I was christened with several nicknames by the rest of my family. My aunt Terri called me Scooter. Eventually, my cousins and siblings perverted that into Pooter. I was a pre-teen boy, so it was probably apt. My sister still calls me Scooter from time to time. When my first nephew spoke his first word, it was an effort to say Scott. Dott. My dad has called me Dott for the last 16 years.
I’m sure I’ve missed some. Those are the lasting and/or memorable ones. Some family who read this can fill in the blanks. Now on to nicknames from school. Those tended to be a little more harsh.
In second grade I came home one afternoon in tears. Someone called me Shrimp. It wasn’t the first time, I was rather short for my age, but for some reason it upset me that day. It lasted a few days and I got used to it.
I don’t remember any other until High School, but that period spawned a few. I’m not going to explain the name I herd most, Coats. I don’t really count it as a nickname.
I think my favorite was Steve Coatez. I only had my name in the paper fro sports one time. I had 3 hits and 3 or 4 RBI in a game in 10th grade. For some reason our coach always called me Steve. Well, he called me Coats, but when he threw in a first name it was almost always Steve. So the next day in the paper the recap contained the sentence, “Steve Coates had 3 hits for Bradshaw.” Thus was born Steve Coatez, along with the shorter version: Coatez.
Most of you know I have curly hair. Really curly hair. My twisted locks gave rise to at least 2 nicknames.
The first, and most crass, was Pube. Or Pubie. Or for the less refined, Pubic Hair. This one started in freshman football. One of my fellow offensive linemen, Greg Morris (who also had curly hair) coined the name. Unfortunately it stuck. I hated it for a few weeks, then eventually came to accept and even like the name. It faded away after a few months. Except with Greg. He called me Pube all the way through graduation.
My other hair related name was much more sophisticated. Broccoli. Steve Mallette gave me this name. Around this time Dana Carvey first did his “Choppin’ Broccoli” sketch on SNL. So most every time Steve was the room with me, he sang the song. Never heard it? Hear the song on YouTube. Or watch the original skit on Hulu.
I had a couple more nicknames as an adult. That happens when you work with teenagers for 10 years. Scoats was the most used name during my time in Birmingham. And thanks to Justin Croninger, I was also known as “The Youth Nazi.” A bit of a riff on Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi and the fact that I tended to shave my head a little more often in those days.
Those are the names I remember. I’m sure there were others. Maybe you know of one. If so, share it. What were/are your nicknames?
My nicknames were many. My sister and aunt always called me "Rhino" and "Ry-Ry" ick... My dad called me "little man" until the time he hit me in the head with a back-hoe by accident and from then on it was "Buckethead". In high school it was Karr which like you said isnt really a nickname. I remember in football some of the guys would try to come up with a nickname for me because of my last name and the one's they came up with were stupid and never stuck such as "Studebaker"... yea.
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