When your name isn't your name..........

[Hound dog]

I'm wondering if my family are the only odd balls. lol And I thought this might be a fun post.

I have an Uncle Pete and an Uncle Bub. Now they've been called Pete and Bub their entire lives. By everyone.

So imagine my shock when I heard my grandma refer to my Uncle Bub one day as Roger. (she was mad at him lol) Turns out Roger is his real name. Then when she discovered my shock over Bub, she informed me that my Uncle Pete's real name is Lyle. This didn't go over well with a 12 yr old, let me tell ya. lol

Now Lyle has no Pete in his name anywhere. He and another uncle used to be called Pete and RePete, cuz they were the difficult children and everything my Uncle Pete did, my Uncle Jim had to do too. The nickname Pete stuck and Lyle was long forgotten.

Roger started out life as the youngest child and was referred to as Bubby. (I really hate that by the way) As he grew older it shortened to Bub. Even he remembers being stunned in kindergarden discovering his name was really Roger.

So? Are we the only weirdo's??? C'mon, fess up.

 

[DammitJanet]

Well...I dont know if this is quite as good but here goes. This is all about my dad.

My dad's real name is Wilbur. Yeah I know...what a thing to be saddled with...but what makes it even better is he is a Junior...lol. You know..I dont even know why he is the Jr either considering he isnt the first son? Makes you go hmmm doesnt it...lol.

Anyway....I guess growing up the boys all had nicknames and his was (oh gag me) DoDo. Yes you read that right! As in Number 2. I have no idea why, no one ever explained that one to me. He grew up in a little small town 12 miles northwest of Boston. Everyone knows everyone there. Both he and my mom grew up there. I would go back up there to visit family and walk into places and hear..."Oh hey...DoDo's daughter is up visiting from down south!"

Now my dad also always hated the name Wilbur. I dont think he much liked Will either. He goes by Bill and on most paperwork he signs it William. All this makes it quite interesting because I have a William as a son who I call Billy, an ex who I call Bill, and now a daughter in law we call Billie...lmao.

 

[Shari]

We don't have this so much with family, but every one of our pets and horses has a "given" name, and then the name we actually eventually call them.

I do know a guy here in town tho. They call him Charlie.

His dad kinda changed his name before they left the hospital with him and kinda forgot to tell the mom...she found out when she got a copy of the birth certificate in the mail. lol

So they call him Charlie, but that's not at ALL his name.

 

[DammitJanet]

Maybe I should change my name on here to DoDo's Dtr? LOL

 

[trinityroyal]

Lisa, you're not the only one. Not by half.

One of my uncles (a dear family friend, really) is named Rudolph. But he hates Rudolph. So...all of his life, he's gone by Buzzy, sometimes Buzz. Even in business dealings, he is known as Buzzy. Buzzy's wife Claudine is the spitting image of her father James. So growing up she was always known as Little Jim. So they are Buzzy and Jim. Buzzy's brother is Winkie and sister is Dewdrop (I don't actually know their real names).

I have an auntie Rajpattie, known as Pinkie (although in her case I can totally understand it).

Even my GFGparents. GFGmom is Gwendoline, known as Betty. GFGdad is Elliston, known as Bob.

Where GFGdad comes from, no one, but NO one actually goes by their given name.

Go figure.

 

[TerryJ2]

Repete that, Roger. Over and out.

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

 

[everywoman]

I have an Aunt Daughter---her real name is Emily---but she was always called Daughter.


I was raised by my grandparents so my aunt and uncle are considered my brother and sisters. I have an aunt/sister named Patty Rebecca---we always called her Becky but professionally she was known as Patty. My only biosister is Patricia Lynn---we call her Patti---she never uses Patricia. They are both teachers and after Patti graduated from college she went to live with Becky and work in the same school district. They have the same last name---so they became Patty with an Y and Patti with an I. They even had that as a message on their answering machine.

 

[Star*]

I was married to Satan - nick named Bud

I think there were Memnoch, Lillith and Belezubub in their family.

Hence the nicks - Memmy, Lil and Bub... or was that

Mommy, Lilly, and Bubba? (still......anyway you slice a pie...it's a pie)

 

[gcvmom]

Okay, I got some weird stuff for ya!

Until he was in highschool, husband used to think his birthday was on September 14th, when in fact it's on the 13th, because his family always celebrated it on that day, because they are all so friggin' superstitious!

At the age of 9, husband's parents changed the family's name to his sister's stage name because it was too complicated for his mom, who was his sister's manager and travelled a lot with her, to explain why her last name was different from her daughter's.

So instead of an interesting Polish name, I married a guy with a very vanilla name. And any time someone asks if we're related to others they know with this name, we always have to say no.

On MY side....

I have an uncle named Rocky whose real name is Dudley.
I had an uncle named Duke whose real name was Phillip.
I had an aunt named Dottie, who also went by Dee, whose real name was Delores.

I have a brother who my mom frequently calls Clifford (that's HER brother's name), whose real name is Christopher.

 

[donna723]

OK, I’ve gotta tell you this one, but it goes back a looong time. And I hope it doesn’t offend anyone – but please bear in mind that this happened over eighty years ago!

My dad, born in 1909, was the oldest of six kids. There was a big age difference and the older ones were already teenagers when the youngest ones were born. My aunt (who is now 86 and the only one still living) was the youngest daughter. My grandpa decided to name her after two of his sisters, both of whom had absolutely hideous first names! We’ll call them "B" and "L" … because she’d kill me if I told! Her middle name isn’t quite as bad as her first name but both are just awful. Her older siblings absolutely refused to call her by either one of those horrible names and gave her the nickname “T..” the day she was born, and she is still called “T..” 86 years later.

Her parents took pity on her and on anything official they always used her middle name "L", which wasn’t quite as bad. And when she was six, they registered her for school as "L", her real middle name. This was the same strict parochial school that all of her siblings had gone to. But the trouble was, she had no earthly idea that she had any other name besides “T..”! It’s what she had been called all her life and no one had ever told her that it wasn’t her real name!

So picture this cute little six year old sitting in class on her very first day of first grade in Catholic school … the roll was being called (by first names only) by the teacher, one of the old-timey school teacher nuns that wore the black habits and carried rulers. When the teacher got to her name, she called out “L?” … and of course she just sat there because her name was “T..”. Growing a little annoyed, the teacher moved to the front of the row she was in, stared right at her and said again, a little louder ..”L?”. And my aunt looked innocently around the room, waiting for someone to answer. Really mad now, the teacher hovered right over her desk, glaring down at her and yelled "L..!" And my aunt, using the neat vocabulary she had picked up from her older brothers, looked up at her and said, “Well, who the He!! is "L"???”. And I will leave the rest to your imagination ...

 

[TerryJ2]

ROFL!!!!
Poor little L. Back in those days, they allowed corporal punishment. Eow.

 

[mstang67chic]

I don't have anything QUITE like the rest of yours but here goes:

On my Dad's side, there are 5 kids. Three from my grandmother's first marriage (he died) and 2 by her second marriage. There is a 20 year difference between the oldest and the youngest. (Who, actually, is the uncle I posted about on WC the other day) The only girl in the family is named Adawn. Growing up though, she was called Sissy as she was the only girl. Eventually it was shortened to Sis and that is what I call her to this day, as do many other adults in and out of the family. But, with the age difference between myself and MY siblings (ranging from 17-23 years), THEY only know her as Aunt Adawn. Also, on that side, I'm known as Cousin Becky because the mother of 3 of my cousins is also named Becky. She is no longer part of the family but the cousins were young enough when this started that they still call me that and I'm 38 years old.

On husband's side, he has an uncle named ..... well, for the life of me I can't remember what his real name is and husband is on the phone so I can't ask. Anyway, ever since he was a kid, he has been called Junebug. I honestly don't think that people could instantly tell you his real name without stopping to think.

 

[donna723]

LOL about "Junebug"! Where I work we used to have a "Squirrel", a "Rabbit" and a "Moose"! A lot of people still don't know their real names! Squirrel died a few years back, Rabbit retired but works part time now, and Moose is still there! We had two other guys, "Petie" and "Jinx" who both had the same last name, but those first name were both nicknames and their real names were really hard to keep track of.

This still just cracks me up! I mentioned a while back on another post about the very distant cousin who researched my paternal grandmothers family way back to the early 1800's and then made up the book with all the family trees and pictures. You have to laugh at the introduction where he talks about how difficult it was to research those early years in Germany! Apparently, back then, families had lots of kids and thought nothing about giving more than one child the same name! Started out with one ancestor named "Gerhard" back in the early 1800's. He married and had a whole herd of kids and named two of his sons "Gerhard"! The older brother "Gerhard" grew up, married and had several children, including a son that he also named "Gerhard" (we're in to the third generation now if you're still following...) - then he died while his children (including little Gerhard) were young. Back in those days in Germany it was the custom that if a brother died and left a young family, and if there was an unmarried younger brother in the family, the younger one was expected to marry his brothers widow, take care of his family and raise his children. So the younger brother "Gerhard" married his older brother "Gerhard's" grieving widow and she had several more children by the younger one, including a son that they named (Guess!!) ... "Gerhard"! These youngest two "Gerhards" (who were also cousins as well as half-brothers!) were children when the parents came to the US right after the Civil War ... one of them became my great-grandfather, but darned if I can figure out which one! And the men in the family who weren't named "Gerhard"? Most of them were named "Henry"! I SWEAR! I couldn't make this stuff up!

 

[Hound dog]

These are too funny. Donna your's takes the cake. I wonder how on earth they kept it straight even among themselves. lol

 

[donna723]

Daisy, can you imagine that poor guy trying to research all that, with little or no formal record keeping way back then! I figure my grandmothers father, grandfather and great grandfather were all named "Gerhard", along with all those uncles and cousins!! And when my grandmother grew up and met my grandfather - his name was "Henry"!

 

[flutterbee]

Nothing so fun here.

My uncle's name is Michael, but we've always called him Wallie. His middle name is Walter. My grandmother *hates* it when people call him Wallie and throws the biggest hissy fit which just encouraged her other 2 boys to do it more and then it stuck with everyone - except my grandmother. Wallie's friends would call and and ask for him (cause he only lived at home on and off til he was like 34 - major difficult child) by Wallie and she would say, "There's nobody hear by that name!", and slam the phone down.

Devon's aunt on his dad's side is Merinda, but Devon couldn't say it and called her Ree Ree (long e) as a little one and it stuck. Sounds kinda funny to hear your almost grown son call someone Aunt Ree Ree. And Devon's dad's great aunt was RaRa.

My former mother in law tried to call Wynter, Winnie, but I nipped that one in the bud PDQ.

 

[witzend]

Oh, Lisa! No one is named Bub!

I had an Uncle Bud, who was always out of work when I was very young. Then he got a job as a janitor and had to wear the shirt they already had. But that was ok because it was already embossed with "Al." Huh? His name wasn't Bud, it was Aloises. That's a lot like Aloysius, but it was pronounced al-LOY-iss-us. No wonder they called him Bud!

I also had an Uncle Duke. His real name was Darrow, I think. They called him "Duke" because he liked to get duded up when he was a young man, and he was quite the ladies man. His brother was "Bub", but his real name was Dayton.

My Aunt Phern really was Aunt Phern, (!) but when I was little she was married to Uncle Mack. When I was about 10, he decided he didn't like "Mack" anymore, he wanted to be called "Lee". Huh? He was in his 40's! Who in their 40's who isn't running from the law decides they want to change their first name? Come to find out, (what did I know, I was a kid!) his name wasn't Mack, either. It was something like John. Phern and Mack/Lee had seven kids. You don't even want to know their names!

Not only isn't anyone really named "Bub", but no one is named "Bud" "Duke" or "Mack" apparently! I guess these were the gangsta street names of the day in Chippewa Falls.

 

[Big Bad Kitty]

When I met Matt, Beefcake was 2 years old.

He heard Matt call me baby (as in hey baby how YOU doin). He then assumed that was my name. So he started calling me that. Before you know it, all the boys are calling me baby.

And they still do!

 

[gcvmom]

Witz, that's funny you mention your uncle Duke's real name was Darrow... because my uncle Duke, whose first name was Phillip, had the middle name Darrow! Perhaps Duke was a common nickname for Darrow at the time?

 

[totoro]

We were just talking about this the other night! We are all nicknames on my side of the family...
But just like Janet... My Dad is a Junior... but there his Dad did not haver the same name!
Dad's name is Henry, but he goes by Lou, even signs Lou. Every sibling, I think there were 9 of them. They all had discrepancies on their Birth Certificates. Names, dates, Moms age, place of birth...
I haven't used my birth name in over 20 years. Nick name stuck. K has a nick name which is a K...