What's my name?

I had a friend once whose slim limbs and bony joints earned her the nickname Beanpole, and no matter how many Curly Wurlys or Freddo bars she ate, to everyone else’s chagrin she stayed as skinny as one.  At the same time, a classmate of rather more generous proportions was affectionately referred to as Podge. She took to this quite happily as a term of endearment and the name endured.  This being in the olden days meant she was one of very few chubby pupils in the whole school and the body type which earned her such a ‘fattist’ term then may well be considered quite average now. 

For a short while I was rather unkindly called Pasty Face (because I was an insipid looking twelve-year-old with a complexion the colour of wallpaper paste, not because I looked like a Cornish meat and potato dish).  And Goldilocks seems quite sweet now, but at the time I didn't take it well, maybe it sounded too babyish.  Before that, my first name was conveniently tweaked a little to turn it into an unfashionable and slightly comical-sounding boy’s one. I didn’t like it but you learn to take it on the chin, don't you?  At least it was better than my young German neighbour’s nickname, Spaz, which, for all its un-PC-ness, was simply a contraction of Sebastian.

Fast forward to my mid-teens and down at the local music venue, which became the centre of a thriving punk scene in the late '70s, there were very few people whose real full names I ever got to know, even though I’d see them there at least once a week.

The punk world was perfect for spawning some memorable monikers, especially useful for those in bands.  So we had Anarchy and Chunky (no relation to Podge) in one, and Stringy, Snout and Bondage in another.   Less evocative-sounding and of unknown origin were the names Milky, Till and Dim.  And for anyone reading this who knows the poetic output of one Attila the Stockbroker I can reliably inform you that back then he was Basil Boghead. 

Then again musicians and singers have been using handy epithets for decades.  Iggy Pop has so much more of a ring to it than James Osterberg, Twinkle far more exotic than Lynn Ripley. 

I use a shortened version of my name in my professional life, but  it's this internet business which has really given us scope.  I mean, now I have friends named after animals and vegetables...