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Driving home from work last night, there was a story on the radio about some guy in Oz. His name was Marsh, but his friends call him "Swampy"! That got me thinking - at school and college, we had nicknames for many of the teachers, lecturers etc. The common ones were "Chalky" for anybody named White, and "Curly" for the bald guys but there were lots of others.

Americans don't "get " this - they can't see the humor in calling a tall guy "Shorty" etc. and the radio programme made no comment on Mr. Marsh being called "Swampy". Anybody have any favorite nicknames you'd like to share?

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I was called curly a few times when I lived in California.

One of the blokes in the mining team I worked in down under called me "chromedome". The rest just called me "Pommy".

We had a Deputy who went under the name "Whizzer" He whizzed here and there, always panicking.

A miner we called flip top, never stopped yacking.

An elec engineer called "Marmite" after his Yorkshire accent of saying mah mate.

A chargehand during my apprenticeship who got called "Bunker Bill" because he spent all shift at the inbye bunker.

"Plonk" one of the surface electricians, he was doing routine maintenance on an oil filled transformer on the coal prep plant, dropped a nut by accident and it went "plonk". lol

"Odd socks" Chargehand electrician at Clifton, always said he had a matching pair of socks at home!

"Womble" a mate on the same shift at Boulby, he was a little electrician, got his name after the "Wombles"

"Drummer" never could find out how he got his name.

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I have indicated elsewhere why I am called coughdrop.

My name is Andrew Cole so this becomes Andy Cole which sounds like Anti-col which is a cough lolly, thus coughdrop.

At Mundella school, we also used to reverse names. The most memorable was Trebor Nitram Doowrah and, of course, mine was elocwerdna.

Regards Andrew

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Nobby Green was another nickname folks got when I was a kid, if there surname was Green. I guess it came from Brussel Sprouts, my mam called them nobby greens.

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  • 2 years later...

Most of the lads I went to school with had a nick name.......what was yours and how did you get it?

Mine was Mini...as I was quite small for my age (made up for it since and am now 6' 8" tall ;) )

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Surprisingly, I didn't have one - in fact not many of my school friends did. One notable exception was a boy that arrived at our school in the 5th form (most of us had been there forever), and some unkind person said "he looks like Donald Duck" - well, it stuck and everybody, teachers too, called him Donald! To this day I bet there are old Long Eaton Grammar School pupils who do not know that was not his real name - nor do they know what his real name was (Michael)!

Most of the rest of the boys were referred to by their last name. I still find it strange that schools in the States use first names for both boys and girls!

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We had them all, Smiffy , Browny, Rocky, Ally, Smant, Peanut, Skelly, Faggsy, Hutcho, Scratch, fat b45t4rd, ,,,I bet you can't guess which one was me !!???

Out of all of them, Hutcho was by far the worst, conkers hanging out one pocket, marbles and catapult hanging out the other, snotters down his chin, dinner stains on his tie.

How he'd made headmaster was beyond me !!!

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  • 4 years later...

Bump

I have had many nicknames in my life ( But we won't go into that) but the one I really liked was when we belonged to the local "Darts Team" for a few years. I for some reason was quite good at the game, and on occasions would win the deciding game for our team!

I earned the nickname of Chrissile The Guided Missile!! Good Aye

Anyone else got one?

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Haha. Great nickname Carni. I have a few which my family call me for some unexplained reasons..

My Dad for some reason calls me 'Beau'

Mum started calling me 'Melissa Tisha' when I was around 6. It's now shortened to 'Tish' haha.

Strange how these names come about!

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My husband's name is Roger and was always known in the area he grew up (down south) as Dodge and surprisingly when our youngest son Andy was in the school rugby team he acquired the nickname Dodge because of the way he played. At the age of 35 his old schoolmates still call him Dodge. I really like that :-)

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one of my old white heart mates allways called me halfpint had not seen him for many years until a couple of years ago the first thing he did gave me a kiss and said eyup half pint he said could not remember my real name but knew who i was strait away i first knew him nearllly 50 years ago he was about 3 years older than me

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  • 3 years later...

Welcome to N/N tabbyoddsocks 

Never mind about your nick name it could have been a lot worse,

I think (if I remember) the Crewcut came from the American marines.

At least you didn't have a Mohican hair cut.

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I never had a nick name but my son used to be called "Scaff" as when he was young he had braces on his teeth, and it looked like Scaffolding.

 

My grandson has got the nick name "penny"

don't ask.!!!!

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  • 5 years later...

Same in our house CT. Also if any man had the surname of Green, he was usually called Nobby. Surname of White was usually called Chalky. Wonder if folks still do that?

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Clarke's were also ''Nobby's''...........dont know why ?

 

Oh Yea.........Taylors were all ''Spuds''

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