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Wednesday, April 16, 2014

N is about Nicknames

Born 30 years before Indian Independence, my Granny was given an English petname: Jewel. More than 30 years after Independence, my Dad named me "Angel". So my nickname stands out among the whole family.

In college, I was christened "Maya" by our seniors during the very first round of ragging. The name stuck, and so hard it hung on me, that I almost forgot what my original name was. Even the faculty would call me Maya. I have graduated more than 10 years now, and still my juniors refer to me by this name.

There was a Bengali guy with a name that is not exactly complex : Dwaipayan Chakraborty, but his classmates used to call him DC. His profile on social media still says "DC" !!

There are people who prefer being called by their shortened versions or pet names: Debleena was called Luna, Shubhabrata was called Logo, Nitin was referred to as TinTin and Tarun was christened "Train".

Samarjit, whose skin colour can put ebony wood to shame, very sportingly allows us to call him "The Dark Lord" !

Share your nicknamein comments!
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Discover Things that make me who I am : ABCDEFGHIJKL, M

6 comments:

Su-sieee! Mac said...

My favorite nickname is one a godfather gave me --Sing. Which is funny because I sing off-key. :-)
The View from the Top of the Ladder

I.L. Wolf said...

Hmm, I guess I've missed out on the nickname party! I haven't had many, but it sounds like you've had some fun ones.

People tend to shorten my name to Isa from Isa-Lee, but that's not all that exciting.

Maggie Winter said...

My father always called me buggerlugs, in an very affectionate way. My name's Margaret but I go by Maggie and some friends call me Mags, which I prefer.
Good 'N'. :)
Loving the A to Z Challenge Maggie@expatbrazil.

Unknown said...

My daughter gave me my nickname MammaNene... because Mamma Irene was too hard to spell for a two years old!
A friend gave to her daughter Maya as first name ;)
Hugs from Italy,
MammaNene @ SergerPepper.com

Loni Townsend said...

You'd think with a name that only consisted of 4 letters, there wouldn't be much there to shorten. But my cousin still does, and calls me "Lon". My brother and another cousin nicknamed me Scrawny Loni, and sometimes just call me Scrawns.

I've come to detest the name Lori (my name misspelled with an R instead of an N), just because people have called me that my entire life.

It's interesting that your nicknames have become part of your identity.

Stephanie Faris said...

Until I was reading a page of people commenting on their feelings about the name "Stephanie" (apparently the page helps people thinking of naming their baby various things), I never thought to insist people call me anything else. I guess that lacks imagination, but I was always just "Stephanie." Some call me Steph and when I was little, I was "Stephie," but I think people just didn't want to say all three syllables!