Those Sticky Nicknames

My home town paper had a piece on nicknames. While reading the list I remembered many of those names...familiar in a strange way. Actually many of those names, given after the birth of the child, stuck through the school years, and now and then, they clung to the person through their adult lives, even appearing in the final obituary.

When I was in high school I wanted to have a nickname like so many others. I was never fortunate to be baptized by my peers. Or, perhaps, I should be grateful I never acquired one of those "nasty" names. Back in my day most of the nicknames were just that...not positive or negative....just a title bestowed by the other kids in a teasing, friendly sort of way.

I tried to install the name Meg on myself. After all, those were my initials, but I soon discovered that self-naming did not have the sticking power. I could not even shorten my name like Elizabeth to Beth or Eliza. Mary Ellen was just that...no Meg.

My sister shortened her name from Patricia to Patsy or Pat, my brother David became Dave and my oldest brother...well, that is a longer story.

He was baptized Placid Raoul Goulet. His first name was after his grandfather, Placide and Raoul was our father's name, although everyone called him Roy. When my brother was born, the doctor placed him in my mother's arms and said, "Here is your little snookums." That name stuck with gradual changes from Snookums to Snooks and later, Nooks.

As my brother grew older he did not appreciate the name Nooks, but he certainly shied away from his given name, Placid. He suffered in silence when teachers called on him with his given name, and I think deep down he preferred Snooks or Nooks. As soon as he left home and could establish his own identity as an adult, he dropped his nickname and his first name and called himself Roy.

I do love the name Roy, but deep inside of me my big brother will always, in one way or another, be Nooks in my memories. Those nicknames really do have staying power.