<p>When I was growing up, the owner of the local grocery store went by “Burrhead”.<br>
His real name was Marion but everybody called him Burrhead 'til the day he died.</p>
<p>My Dad (1920-1974)was nicknamed “Bunch” by his grandmother…apparantly he was a “bunch of trouble”. That silly name stuck the rest of his life. Everybody who knew him called him “Bunch”. I never realized it was a weird nickname until I got older since it was all I ever heard my father called.</p>
<p>My H’s aunt Sister (which is all her parents and brother ever called her) told us about how sad it was that her “Aunt Bunchie” was only know by her nickname.
Same woman who asked me to call her by the same name as my H and his sibs has always called her - “Auntie”. I called her that until she died. She had a beautiful real name.</p>
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<p>I completely fail to understand this. I see nothing “sad” about people preferring to use a nice, dignified name instead of truncating it. I see nothing inherently positive about nicknames. I know two girls who have the lovely name Amelia and are called by the–to me-- unpleasant nickname Millie. Now that’s sad!</p>
<p>We call our son by his full name, although his friends use a common nickname instead. it’s a nickname that I actually like, so it doesn’t bother me, but I fail to understand why my calling him by his real name is “sad.”</p>
<p>My mother had a lovely name but, according to family legend, her father wanted a boy, so he called her Jim throughout her life. So did my father. So now, to my children, we refer to her as Grandma Jim. (She died when my older son was only five weeks old, so it’s not like they remember her anyway . . . . )</p>
<p>Yesterday I heard about a kid named something like “La-a”…pronounced la-DASH-a. Now even punctuation marks are getting into the act. Only a matter of time until kids are called “&” (Ampersand) or “/” (Virgule) or “*” (Asterisk).</p>
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My daughter has one of those nice, dignified names that she chooses to shorten. I don’t use the nickname because I named her for a reason and love her name. (I named her after my favorite childhood doll.) Recently I was angry and called her down from her room using the nickname. She was shocked because I’ve never used it before, although I’m the only one.</p>
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<p>We had one of those, too. My dad’s widowed grandpa married a woman who was a great aunt to the kids from the other side of the family. So instead of Grandma, she was “Auntie”…BUT (dig this), it was pronounsed “A-nie” (rhyming with “brainy.”) When I think of this stuff, it’s unbelievable how back-woods it all sounds now!</p>
<p>Oh Schmaltz, La-a is a new low in the unfortunate phenomenon of punctuation marks and upper case letters in the middle of a name.</p>
<p>Back to the Southern name topic:</p>
<p>Come on, People! Didn’t y’all watch “The Waltons”? Surely you know that Southern men have to have 2 names: John Boy, Jim Bob, etc.</p>
<p>My friend’s father in East Texas is Joe Ed. We’ve got a Joe Bill at our law firm.</p>
<p>My D threatens to combine her grandfathers’ names - Benjamin and Robert - if she has a son: Ben Bob.</p>
<p>Or Bobbin for a girl?!? :D</p>
<p>Hey, the Emergency Financial Director of the Detroit Public School system is named Robert Bobb. Who names their child “Bob Bobb”?</p>
<p>LOL!!!</p>
<p>10 char</p>
<p>is anyone familiar with the name Gencie, or Jinsey? I have a couple of those in my Southern family tree. I think it might be short for Virginia, because we’ve also got one of those but she is called Ginny.</p>
<p>I grew up pronouncing “aunt” as “aint”. My great uncles were “Unca ___”. I also had an Aint Willie and an Aint Matt.</p>
<p>The given name of the famous old Southern Baptist minister W.A. Criswell was just that: W.A. Just initials. He said that when he got to college they insisted he have a regular name, so he said it stood for “Wally Amos” … but he always went by W.A.</p>
<p>When I was a little girl, I knew a lot of men who went by two initials (e.g. “A.W” “A.J.” “P.J”) Was that a Southern Illinois thing, or a 50s-60s thing?</p>
<p>I know a J. Michael and the J is only a J, nothing more. He lives in Texas.</p>
<p>Of course, the name “A.W.” which had been shortened from something was itself shortened to “Dub.”</p>
<p>We always called all our aunts “aint” too. I call my Aint Alice every Sunday afternoon.</p>
<p>My h.s Algebra teacher’s name was “Dutch” That was his real name. His son’s name was Dutch D. The D didn’t stand for anything but he was always called Dutch D. to avoid mix-up with his dad, Dutch.</p>
<p>Wow, all these initial names are really bringing back memories. My parents had a widowed friend named “Kay.” Okay, that’s actually a name. But the daughter was always “Mary D” (or it could have been “Mary Dee”) and the son was always G. Just G.</p>
<p>Okay, for all of you who grew up calling your Aunts “Aint” - How do you pronounce it now? “Ant” or “Ahnt”. “Ahnt” sound much classier, but it doesn’t sound natural coming from me.</p>