Dolly

 I was filling out Alina's birthday card the other day. (A day late, but she's a baby, she doesn't know the difference...) I decided to jot down a bunch of names that we've been calling her throughout the year. A lot of the names won't stick but I wanted to be able to look back years from now and remember some of them.

 When Alina was just an idea in my tummy, we nicknamed her Peanut. It's funny how we always referred to the baby as Peanut for a full nine months and then she was born and we quit calling her Peanut right away. Other favourites that we call her are Monkey, Boo Boo, Pete (Sleepy Pete), Stinky or Stew (Stinky Stew), Bo Bina (Alina Bo Bina) and Betty, to name a few.

When I was a wee one my mom started to call me Dolly because she said I looked so much like a doll. I had rosebud lips, full, dark hair and I was pretty like a doll. The nickname absolutely stuck. My mom still calls me Dolly or Doll, now that I'm older. She was pretty embarrassing about it for my entire life. She would call out to me in stores with that name or even last year, when I was working she would ask for Dolly on the phone and quickly correct herself. My boss would say, "It's for you ... Dolly." Bah! But lucky for my mom, I am a nice daughter and haven't given her too much grief over her slip ups. After all, it is like my 'other' name.

Me.

 What is with nicknames anyway? Some can be so overpowering that they become the person's name. I remember when Rob and I named Alina, we thought about other names that people might end up calling her; Ally, Lena or Al. I liked all of those choices and hope that if her name changes over the years, it doesn't change too much.

 Rob has a friend named Mark, that has been called Beaver since high school. If I was his mother I would be horrified. You take that nine months (or longer) to really put a lot of thought into a great name for your child and then one a-hole in his 15th year changes everything. I still get confused when Rob calls him Mark.. I have to go "Oh, you mean Beaver.."

  There's always that person that calls everybody by some kind of nickname. I had a friend like that in high school that called me by my last name. I know someone now that calls me by the name of my home town. I do enjoy being called something different for some reason. But I know that not everyone feels that way. I also know that some people get really offended when you shorten their name. I ended up calling my co-worker by a shortened version of her name for awhile until I finally clued in that she introduced herself as her full name, every single time.

 Madonna is well known for her nickname, Madge. Apparently her ex Guy Richie swears she was nicknamed Madge because it is short for "her majesty.." Madge is known for hating the nickname and lucky for her, she is more well known as Madonna. Robert Van Winkle more popularly known as Vanilla Ice also had a big dislike for his nickname. He earned it by being one of the only white dancers in a break dancing group. The name stuck and he went with it. I will say that if someone asked me who Robert Van Winkle was, I would probably think they were referring to Father Time.

 So all nicknames are certainly not liked. Me, personally I don't mind being called Dolly by my mom. Is it because I'm completely used to it? Probably. It also reminds me that my mom still thinks of me as her little doll, which is kind of cute in a puke in your mouth kind of way.

 What do you think of nicknames?

Do you have a nickname and what's the story behind it!?

Are you offended by the idea of someone give you a shortened version of your name or a nickname?