Not the obvious ones, like everyone knows someone called Wayne Bruce who picked up the nickname "Manbat." Rather, who do you know with a nickname earned for utterly random reasons?
Eg,
I worked with a guy once who was known as Briefcase. The reason being, he turned up at work one time carrying a briefcase. About 20 years ago.
At high school, a lad earned the nickname Gandhi. Because thanks to a particularly vindictive PE teacher he pissed his shorts during a PE lesson. Gandhi wore a big nappy, y'see. Kids are bastards.
What've you got?
We had a girl at work who was known as 'Bond Girl' until she left. Only because when she first started someone misheard her described as a blonde girl.
A mate of mine is known by everyone as Ken. His real name is Andy but he bought an old vintage Triumph Bonneville, years ago, the same as the one Ken Boon rode in the old series ‘Boon’. I’m sure people who’ve known him for years don’t know his name is Andy. His mum is literally the only person who doesn’t call him Ken
Sqidgey Matt, due to a misinterpretation of a request for some sort of bouldering-mat device for use when climbing a bridge.
.
Reading Pete, who lives in Banbury.
Cardiff Steve, who lives in Penarth
Scottish James, who lives in Terrerife
.
I'm known as Crasher. Sat in a cafe one day with a chap I'd been riding with for about three years and he just said, out of the blue, 'what is your real name Crash?' I suspect that he is far from the only one not to know this
We had a bloke called Nogger, we were supposed to be getting someone called Wood but that was changed at the last minute. We’d chosen the name so had to use it. We had a froggy- slightly protruding eyes, Dobbin / -teeth, Bart, Sluggy, Ed (Scarffe), Reg (like on Corry) etc, etc
One of the operators at work calls his mate Sugar Tits, because he strongly believes it's a nickname that should be employed at site but it's obvious inappropriate to give it to any of our female colleagues.
My old boss was called 'big show' (not to his face).
As he was quite overbearing and had a passing resemblance to the wrestler of the same name..
Bloke I played cricket with was so slow (running) - in the field, between the wickets, so he was nicknamed Arkle.
Not anyone I know IRL, but QPR's ex player Fitz Hall - One Size.
And an account manager called 'action man' because he had the physique and posture of a generic plastic male doll, complete with fuzzy generic haircut.
I christened a South African ex-Para workmate Little Zola because he liked cross country running.
A colleague was called 'something' Nobbs. In the pub, he and his Mrs were known as 'Nobbs & Knockers'...
When I was following the Fields Of The Nephilim we knew a girl who worked in a library and was a bit burly so we called her “Hilda The Builder”.
At one particular gig we hooked up with some locals and were working which mutual friends we had from seeing the band. We mentioned Hilda ,described her and immediately they said “oh you mean Conan The Librarian”
Still laugh when I think about it 36 years later.
Rather, who do you know with a nickname earned for utterly random reasons?
At uni my brother was called ‘The Goat’, his housemate had a nickname ‘chops’ and my bro used to offer food with a ‘do you want one chops?’, at the time Paulo Wonchope was a Man City forward, his strike partner was Shaun ‘The Goat’ Goater.
I’ve been known as Razor since school, the WWF wrestler I was allocated as my character was ‘Razor’ Ramone and it just stuck, even my schoolmates kids call me it these days.
I’ve been called Binners by everyone since I was at school. I’m 54. My sister used to call me bin lid because it rhymed with our kid, then everyone started using it. That was then appropriated to Binners (after a brief dalliance with Bin Laden, pre 9/11) and that’s what I’ve been known as ever since. My nieces call me uncle Bin Lid
This thread has definitely been done before...but anyway.
First night at uni we were asking each others nicknames and one lass said she was called Vacant at school (she looked it). It was misheard by everyone as Bacon and that's what she's been called ever since.
Mate from school had an older brother who had a snail farm briefly. So all the kids called him Snail. That got changed to Snez at some point.
I heard this once on TV so not sure how true but the rugby player Billie Twelvetrees was called 36 by his Irish coach because, um well, in an Irish accent twelve t(h)rees are thirty six
He was widely known as 36.
The Scots rugby fans that inhabit another corner of the internet have all sorts of nicknames for the team some of which have ended up in the wider media
Finn Russell is "Dancer"
Blair Kinghorn is King Blairhorn
Bennett is "the messiah"
Jones and Tuipulotu are collectivly known Huipulotu
Tuipulotu Junior is "wee Shona"
Z Fagerson is Ragnor
Darcy Graham is "adhd kid"
Dobie is " the house elf"
etc etc
My English teacher Mr Richardson was called Peanuts for absolutely no reason anyone could tell.
The nickname eventually fell into disuse until about 15/20 years later when all the offspring of ex-pupils started going to the school and having him as their teacher. He was apparently gutted it had made a comeback...
This thread has definitely been done before…but anyway.
Nicknames has certainly been done at least once before. I was specifically leaning into nicknames for bonkers random reasons, like I have a friend known as "Projectile Dave" after a particularly impressive beer fuelled sicky-uppy event about 30 years ago.
John Eales the rugby player was known as "nobody" - because nobody is perfect
All Daves seem to have prefixes. My mate Cowboy Dave was christened that just because it’s a Happy Mondays song and he’s very Manc. The Dave bit then got omitted completely and he just became known by everyone as ‘Cowboy’
I’ve got another mate called Ambrose who I went to uni with. Her names actually Wendy, but Wendy rhymes with Mendy, and Ambrose Mendy was a boxing promoter who was around at the time, hence Ambrose. The name stuck and is still her nickname 30 years later
Oh, sure. We have "Dave" and "No, The Other Dave."
It's an affliction for Mikes also. We number them, "is MP2 coming out tonight?"
This is where working in mills, as a labourer and other lifting heavy stuff jobs pays off.
Wolfie - A man who fell off a ladder suffering a spinal injury. The result was he had a slight hunch, his hands hung funny and swayed a bit and he had an odd walk Somebody commented that he looked like the wolf man
Diesel - Never found out why.
Piltdown - A man who had a Neanderthal look to him. A kind lady from the HR department pulled a few of us in and asked Andy (Piltdown) if he'd like to raise a grievance. He stood up, used his massive hands and his freakishly long arms to present himself and said "looks at me love, they've got a good point"
Greenpeace - a massive guy who once laid down on a trolley and two blokes threw water over him and started pulling the trolley whilst yelling about getting the whale back in the ocean.
I originally joined here as TandemJeremy. Some folk ( as often happens here) shortened it to TJ or ~Teej. Nothing particularly unusual in that - until my nephews and their pals somehow picked up on it and now they all call me TJ. they have never been on this site!
Dog Otter, because he looked like a cross between a Dog and an Otter..
Bash - because he looked like one of the Bash Street kids.
One ball - because....
Radar - looked like Radar from MASH
Worked with a girl years ago known as BJ across the whole site. She was quite popular come to think of it 😉
Theres a guy who owns a nearby pub, now called 'Pidder' by everyone who knows him. His real name is Stu(art) and at one time he knocked about with another Stu. So they were known as Stu-pid and Stu-pidder at that stage. Then the first one moved away.
First week of uni in 1999, 6 complete strangers thrown together in a halls of residence flat. Completely average height John C (surname not actually important) gets calls "Big John Stubbs, middle name Muggs" after a Wu Tang lyric. It sticks and 4 years later as part of the student committee Freshers who have never met him before are calling him Stubbsie. I'm assuming he shook the name off when out in the working world but I like to think it's still in it there.
I have a good friend called 'Crazy Emma'.
She's lovely, but if you put a bottle of red or two infront of her, you'd understand!
I have a good friend called ‘Crazy Emma’.
She’s lovely, but if you put a bottle of red or two infront of her, you’d understand!
I’ve a mate called ‘Crazy Dave’. He’s a retired headmaster and the least crazy person you’ll ever meet. His real name is George. I can’t even remember why we started calling him Crazy Dave, but it’s stuck.
My mate was called Isaiah at school
He's got a slightly wonky face so one eye is higher than the other. I never noticed it until he started wearing glasses. Teenagers are often cruel and sometimes funny.
I was beetroot head cos of my permanent large rosey cheeks
A friend of a friend is referred to by everyone as Planet Head. He’s quite full of himself, to say the least, and is blissfully unaware this is what he’s known as.
An old work colleague used to randomly refer to other colleagues directly and indirectly by one nickname or various nicknames from a collection including...
Moocow
Schnorbitz
Sausages
Brains
Muscles
Batman
Very random!
Hah.. I've a colleague we ironically call 'Brain trust'....to his face...
As he has a habbit of talking with 200% confidence on subjects he clearly has zero % understanding of.
He doesn't seem to mind at all, I think the joke is lost on him and he takes it as a compliment.
I worked with a guy called Red. Everyone wore blue boilersuits but his got splashed with oil one time and he wore a spare red boilersuit that he had in his car for one day. He was mocked mercilessly for owning a red boilersuit (obviously a sign of sexual deviance, right) and was known as Red ever after.
I worked with a guy called Red. Everyone wore blue boilersuits but his got splashed with oil one time and he wore a spare red boilersuit that he had in his car for one day. He was mocked mercilessly for owning a red boilersuit (obviously a sign of sexual deviance, right) and was known as Red ever after.
That's brilliant and not too offensive - I approve of this, hahah!
This may have come up before, I have a vague recollection of it, but anyway; when I was at school I had a real love of cars, and around that time Dunlop introduced a new type of performance-oriented tyre called the D70. It had a particular feature in that when uninflated the tread was concave, so that when properly inflated the tread surface was flat, and it was given the name ‘Groundhog’, and there were promotional stickers given away, some of which found their way onto things like my school satchel, etc.
Inevitably I got the nickname Groundhog, but fifty-odd years on, there’s only one person in the world who actually remembers and on the very, very rare occasion I bump into her she always calls me by that name. We were an item for a while, and it makes me smile that she still does. Bless her. 🙂
One of the university cricket teams had someone who was know as Churner, he wasn’t the greatest fielder and It was short for Chernobyl as in slow reactor…..
Mark Waugh the Aussie cricketer and brother of great Steve, whilst still an excellent player was known as Afghanistan, the forgotten war…..
Calling Sanny to the forum...
We had an English teacher who had a very lightweight and wispy comb-over and a bouncing gait, as he walked, it floated up and down like a pan boiling over...we called him Lid. But also Bod - of the BBC children's educational cartoon, but for no good reason I can think of. A whole class was detained once for whistling the tune as he approached them.
