I have a hard time with nicknames, because I read into them too much. It’s hard for me to call a friend by a nickname unless I’m introduced to them as such, or I’ve understood that they’re quite happy with it (to the exclusion of their given name—Boo is an example).
It’s because it seems to me a sign of a lack of respect for the person as they are if someone dubs another with a nickname. It’s like the difference between “Jesus Christ per se” and “my Jesus,” to some extent—that’s not inherently disrespectful at all, just indicative of difffering worldviews, right? It doesn’t diminish the divinity or person of Christ to claim Him as one’s own. Same with nicknames, but in a way that might actually diminish that person.
For example. When I go to work at places, I often introduce myself as “Mike,” not Michael. Using my full first name gives a sense of intimate familiarity. There is to me a shaving off of part of myself to truncate my name; you shan’t know “Michael,” thinker, dreamer, writer, student, son … but as my coworker you will know the Mike that gets things done, the efficient and dynamic coder (or whatever) who will write programs for you and shoot the bull with you at lunch break. If we end up going for drinks after work sometime, call me Michael.
Same with the last name. There is one person on this earth who can call me “Phillips” without my taking offense, and that’s because she and I have been best friends for more than a decade. It’s used in the Army because it’s the closest thing you can come to a statistic; I remember wearing my father’s old, too-small black trench coat to my classes my freshman year of college because I was bedarkened of mind and affect, and didn’t want anyone to know me; “You shall know me as Phillips, not as your intimate colleague Michael.”
Understand, too, that I was given a ridiculous nickname in middle school, and some still call me by that; back then, it wasn’t funny, and it’s still not, but it does have enough time between the dubbing and the present to lend some joviality to the nickname.
On most forums or sites, you will know me as tek1024; tek as a truncation of my old ICQ moniker “Technophile,” lover of both technology and techno (music); and 1024 as the beautiful “round” number 2^10, representing my history in computer science and enjoyment of the different mindset of “hacking culture.” But even with this self-given nick, you don’t know me; you merely see a side of me, a splinter of myself that I present, like a résumé tweaked for a certain job description.
And there is a difference between nicks given to oneself and those given by others; but for me, they all signify a hiding of myself (if I coined it) or a “making less complicated than the whole” if given by another. For instance, my nickname from middle and high school describes that aspect of me that was the outgoing entertainer, the track-and-fielder, the high-jumper who jumped over the hoods of cars and beds of trucks for fun and amusement.
So it’s difficult for me when friends dub themselves differently, because I don’t want to come across as disrespectful. It’s only recently that I’ve been exposed to a nickname that empowers, that gives another meaning. A friend of mine has just such a nick she gave herself; it’s difficult for me to adopt it, not merely because of habit, but because something in me catches when tempted to say or type it: “No! I will respect you for who you are, all of you, by your full first name!” But it’s taken as more respectful if I do use it, in this case.
When it comes down to it, perhaps this giving of nicks to oneself comes from a desire to more accurately depict one’s full self, like the first name. As intimate as it may be for someone to call me by my full name, intimately, quietly, with the authority of our relationship, it is still only a designation, a serial number, until we reach Eternity.
Revelation 2:17 says of believers, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.”
In Hebrew, to name someone was to describe their essence; thus Jacob, for instance, was “the supplanter,” literally “One who grasps the heel,” and sure enough, not only was he the second-born grasping the heel of his brother at birth, but was by God’s own Providence the favored son on whom the blessing rested. In the same way, the Hebrews called God “Ha’Shem,” literally “The Name,” because to pronounce the very essence of God with unclean lips was very literally to commit blasphemy. Doesn’t it make you wonder what will be written on that white stone? When the Lord whispers in your ear, if you believe and persevere to the end, your full name, not a quasi-unique phonetic designation given by your biological parents, but your very essence intoned!—what will it say? It makes even our full names merely nicks we use for a while, shards of our whole selves.
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I added the torrent I wanted, and waited for the notification icon to turn from “no peers” to seeds and peers connected in a healthy torrent swarm. I waited….
