I’ve been harboring a little regret for awhile now. For 20 years actually - ever since my first day of elementary school. On a hot summer morning in August of 1991, dressed pretty for my first day of school, sitting in my little blue metal chair, enjoying the cool surface of my stubby wooden desk, my shy self said something that has impacted me every day since then. It happened during my very first roll call. When the nice teacher took attendance, as all teachers do, she asked us if we preferred to be called by a different name. Maybe “TJ” instead of Thomas or “Katie” instead of Katherine. When she called my name, I stayed silent.
I wish I would have said, “Everyone calls me Annie.”
Everyone did call me Annie back then, along with the intermittent “AnnaBanana” and “Annabelle,” and of course “Sweetheart” and “Sweetie” from my parents. My Mom and Dad even sang the Michael Jackson song to me when I wasn't feeling well: "Annie are you okay, are you okay, Annie?" They still do sometimes.
But I didn’t tell my teacher about my nickname on the first day of school. So everyone in my elementary school knew me as Anne (with an “e” of course), and then everyone in junior high, and then high school... And now I’m in my mid-twenties and the only people who call me Annie are the same ones that did when I was five, along with the random customer service representative who doesn’t know that the “e” is silent at the end of Anne.
But even when the annoying telemarketer on the phone greets me with, “Hello, Miss Ann-ee...” my heart skips a beat and I’m secretly really happy that he mispronounced my name. I even felt a pang of heartbreak a few years ago when my Uncle asked me, “I know we’ve always called you Annie, but you prefer being called Anne, right?”
Why am I so attached to my nickname?
Thanks to my odd curiosity about the science of love and romance, I happen to know the answer. As Leil Lowndes explains in her book How To Make Anyone Fall In Love With You (Don’t judge - it’s actually a really interesting book.) nicknames evoke feelings of intimacy and bonding:
I wish I would have said, “Everyone calls me Annie.”
Everyone did call me Annie back then, along with the intermittent “AnnaBanana” and “Annabelle,” and of course “Sweetheart” and “Sweetie” from my parents. My Mom and Dad even sang the Michael Jackson song to me when I wasn't feeling well: "Annie are you okay, are you okay, Annie?" They still do sometimes.
But I didn’t tell my teacher about my nickname on the first day of school. So everyone in my elementary school knew me as Anne (with an “e” of course), and then everyone in junior high, and then high school... And now I’m in my mid-twenties and the only people who call me Annie are the same ones that did when I was five, along with the random customer service representative who doesn’t know that the “e” is silent at the end of Anne.
But even when the annoying telemarketer on the phone greets me with, “Hello, Miss Ann-ee...” my heart skips a beat and I’m secretly really happy that he mispronounced my name. I even felt a pang of heartbreak a few years ago when my Uncle asked me, “I know we’ve always called you Annie, but you prefer being called Anne, right?”
Why am I so attached to my nickname?
Thanks to my odd curiosity about the science of love and romance, I happen to know the answer. As Leil Lowndes explains in her book How To Make Anyone Fall In Love With You (Don’t judge - it’s actually a really interesting book.) nicknames evoke feelings of intimacy and bonding:
Many of us, when we were kids, had nicknames. Lots of today's Roberts were once called Bobby.
Many Elizabeths were once little Betsy. Many Johns were Johnny, and Sues were Suzie. Did youhave a kid name? I did. My mother and all the other kids called me "Leilie." That remained my official designation until I decided it wasn't respectable-sounding enough for the young professional I aspired to be. So, along with my intended personality change, came a name change. I insisted everyone call me Leil.
I have one friend from my childhood days, Rick, who resisted the change and to this day calls me Leilie. Whenever I hear a voice on the phone asking to speak to Leilie, my heart thumps with childhood memories. The emotions that I feel upon hearing Leilie get transferred to Rick, and I'm sure the fact that Rick (I call him Ricky) calls me Leilie is one factor in our friendship lasting so long.
Childhood experiences and childhood names have a strong subliminal effect. Like any weapon, however, this one could backfire. If your Quarry had an unhappy childhood, hearing an old nickname might invoke horrible memories....
However, if your Quarry had a happy childhood, using a pet name deepens intimacy, and it shoots a little PEA (love chemical) through his or her veins every time you say that name.
Then again, if everyone called me by my nickname, maybe it wouldn’t feel so special. Of course, for the most important people in my life, we have our very own nicknames, and it'd be weird if you called me "sweetie" or "baby." But if you call me Annie, I can't help but smile.
3 comments:
As usual, you've found the right words to describe exactly the way I feel about this!
Since I've gone by Becky almost all of my life, I tend to notice the absence of the nickname more than the use of it: if someone calls me Rebecca instead of Becky, it's a reminder that we aren't really friends/don't really know each other. (I use Rebecca in professional correspondence and settings like presentations, but pretty much once I've had an actual, one-on-one conversation with someone, I use Becky)
However, I get exactly the feeling you describe here when people call me "Beck." I would never introduce myself that way, or ask or encourage someone to call me that. It's not my name, it's like an abbreviation. But I immediately love anyone who uses it. It's mostly only family and close friends who do, but Sam has a friend who calls me that, and I found myself warming to him a lot more quickly than I usually do to new people.
My dad calls me "Beckyl," which is like a completely made up word, and I was totally caught off guard last year when out of the blue a co-worker called me that. Where did it come from?? In that case, it was sort of funny and I didn't mind it that once, but it would have been very weird if he had continued to do it--almost like an inappropriate term of endearment.
Becky, it's so interesting how nicknames and pet names seem to just evolve to suite our various relationships.
Names are an interesting aspect of life. When I get to know someone, I do the opposite of a nickname. I call them by their full name. Dave becomes David, Ron becomes Ronald. I didn't realize I did this until we were playing a guess who game at work and the clue for me was, "This is the only other person beside your mom that calls you by your full name."And if they have a name that is not shortened I tend to call them by first and last name. ex: "John Murdock". It is a quirk.
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