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Oct. 13, 2005 Today, while I was sitting at work my mind began to wonder and I began to contemplate the implications behind a nickname. It seems to me that nicknames seem to serve as a more accurate depiction of one’s character than their given name. Parents bestow a name upon a child without ever meeting them and what’s worse is a child does not even have an opportunity to develop a personality at all before birth. It seems as though the entire name giving process is a gamble in ever sense of the word. You basically fit a name covering over a newborn and hope that they grow and somehow conform to the robe you wrap them in. It intrigues me when parents handicap their kids from birth. I have met wonderful people that were named Bernard, Leroy, Milton, and so on. It almost seems like a cruel joke for a parent to do this to a child. What is even more ironic to me is when you look at a child and think that such a name fits them perfectly. The other travesty of handing out names at birth is the conservative parent that gives their child a common, everyday, run of the mill name. It seems as though the actual birth process saps the new parents of all their creativity and spontaneity. This becomes more and more apparent to me every time I encounter a Justin, or a Michael. The most ironic part of that is that my little brother’s name is Michael and my name is Jason. I can remember thinking when I was little how cool it would have been if my name were Blake. Alas, it seems as though Jason was the way to go, as my alternative was Jacob. I think I would have actually tormented myself as a child for having to carry around a name such as that. So not really being able to change the hands we were dealt and having little to no power to improve our lots in regards to our given names, our friends are forced to take a stand. They represent the last line of defense against the evil duo that conspired against us in our helpless infant states. Your peers actually know your personality, your quirks, and have an all round understanding of your personality. They take this information and synthesize it into a name that fits you with unparalleled precision. The real beauty in a nickname is that they are extremely malleable, so if one does not necessarily fit initially, over time the person it was given to makes it their very own. I have a friend named Lauren, and for whatever reasons after getting to know her that name no longer fit the image of her that she painted in my head. It seemed to me that she needed something with a little more pizzazz; she required a name with a little more gusto. After retiring briefly into a deep cavern of my mind I was able to come up with something that I envisioned would fit her like a glove. On that day L. Boogie emerged like the phoenix from the ashes of what was once just merely Lauren. After some time and a bit of an evolution she now goes by the moniker Boogie. You can now put her in the same league as Usher, Madonna, and a host of others that are known simply by one name. It seems to me that some people work better with their given name, and to their credit their parents made a good gamble and a good choice. I would wager that these individuals comprise a small percentage of the population, and are a rarity indeed. For the masses of us that were not so lucky we take solace in the fact that there is a nickname out there somewhere for us that fits us better than our favorite article pf clothing. Ultimately it is just a matter of time before it is found and our personality matches our name. ------------ About the author: Jason Trace is a graduate of Michigan State University. Email Jason Trace: tracejas@msu.edu Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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