Jan 30, 2009

Evolution of a ridiculous nickname

Have you ever given your child or pet a full name and then ended up with a silly, totally unrelated nickname for them?

I call Nathaniel "Boo" all the time, I call Nicholas "Baby" a lot of the time, and now Jake has somehow become "Tooda." We named Jake "Just Jake" because we never planned to call him Jacob. We knew before he was born that he would be a Jake, so we went with that from the outset. And now I've gone and given him a two-syllable nickname that takes considerably longer to say than "Jake." Especially since I say it two or three times in a row, sometimes squeal it, sometimes growl it ... whatever it takes to get a smile out of him. Because, God bless him, that smile is like a lightbulb.

What is so funny to me about the nickname (in addition to its complete idiocy) is that every time I say it, I'm reminded of Andy Bernard shouting "Tuna!" to Jim Halpert on The Office. And that in itself puts a smile on my face.

I started thinking about how I got there, and I realized it was something like this:

I did the same thing with my parents' last dog, the one we got my senior year in high school. He went from Murphy to Murpho to Murto. Why in heaven's name would you call a dog MURTO? I cannot even explain myself to myself.


Sarah T. said...

Didn't "Murphy" often become "Murse-o-turse"? I remember calling him that a lot. And I"ll always think of Harrison as "Suni" in the back of my head, because that's what Ky called him before Ky could say, "Harrison."

Katherine said...

YES! Murse-o-Turse was definitely in the mix! I'd forgotten about that one. And Harrison will always be Suni to me.

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