NickNameStories |

Jun 13th, 2016

“Wavy Gravy”, “Pigpen”, “The Crazy Postman”, and other Nicknames from the Grateful Dead

While recently reading the new book “Deal” by Bill Kreutzmann, one of the drummers for the Grateful Dead, the first 100 pages of the book are replete with nicknames. Although I’m sure unintentional, Bill’s story reinforces both the power and the popularity of nicknames in American music and pop culture. The first time I saw the [...]

Jun 6th, 2016

Nicknames and Muhammad Ali – The Louisville Lip, The Champ, The Greatest

“Hands of Stone’, “The Hitman”, The Bayonne Bleeder”, ‘“The Mongoose”, “The Brown Bomber” What do these nicknames have in common? If I threw in “The Greatest” you would quickly realize these are some of the best nicknames in the history of boxing. Unlike most nicknames, which are assigned by others, Muhammed Ali’s self-proclaimed himself ‘The Greatest” [...]

Jun 2nd, 2016

School’s Out For The Summer – But the Bullying Is Likely Still In Session

It used to be, back in the day, that when school was out for the summer, it was almost a guaranteed 90 day reprieve from your playground or class room bully. That arch nemesis. Not anymore. Even though not seeing the bully on a daily basis – in the hallway or on the playground – [...]

May 25th, 2016

Breaking Bad Full of Good Nicknames

Great shows deserve and earn characters with good nicknames. Even if you happen to be one of those outliers who have not binge-watched arguably the best show in the history of television, Breaking Bad is full of good ones. And for hard-core fans of the show, it would have a completely different vibe if “Skinny [...]

May 18th, 2016

Social Media – The Perfect Medium for Nicknames – Can over 24 Million Tweets be Wrong?

If the cultural conditions were ever ripe for a proliferation of nicknames, and attributable to the never-ending onslaught of all things “social media”, certainly now is the time. Let’s take a closer look: Since it’s inception, Facebook has added a prompt for the creation of a nickname. Twitter ID’s are full of people’s nicknames. Instragram [...]

May 16th, 2016

Considering Tattooing the Nickname of your Significant Other? Rarely a Good Idea

As we used to say in college: “Never do what you can’t undo.” In my view, a tattoo was always one of those life decisions unlikely to be undone. And until recently, most people limited their perception of tattoos to the motorcycle community, with an image of a heart, and the word “Mother” appearing as [...]

May 11th, 2016

New Nicknames, Old Issue for the Current U.S. Presidential Campaign Playground

Perhaps it is something we all learned on the playground, either directly or indirectly – nicknames matter. And sadly, for our country today, no one is more aware of this fact than the current democratic and republican campaigns. When Richard Nixon was running for the Senate in 1950, his nickname “Tricky Dick” cast a label [...]

Jan 5th, 2011