Jim "Two Treats" Crooks of Wyoming (center) got his nickname from his buddies Brian Huth (left) and Jon Hand. (Jeff Swinger photos) | ZOOM |

        When a sales rep tried to track down Dan Donovan at a 1996 California trade show, Mr. Donovan was described as “the heavyset guy from the Midwest.”

        Today, he basks in the identity of “heavyset” and operates his Loveland wholesale distributorship as Heavyset Industries.

        Teacher Megan Walsh, of Covington, decided her brother needed a nickname 12 years ago and started calling him “Bob.”

        “My parents were a little confused since his name is Kevin,” she says.

        Friends and relatives picked up on the joke and reveled in buying him personalized t-shirts and caps.

        Some people just couldn't stop.

        Ray House, aquatic director at St. Leon's East Central High School, became “Sumo” when he showed up 50 pounds overweight for swim-team training at Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond.

Ray House was nicknamed "Sumo" by teammates on Eastern Kentucky University's swim team. | ZOOM |

        “To make matters worse, I was on a full athletic scholarship,” he remembers.

        More than 100 readers offered up examples and anecdotes after we published a story about nicknames last month

        Many of them were associated with bodies and body parts. Many originated with young children and their mispronunciations. Others were based on the foods and beverages people eat.
       

Just for laughs
        In some cases, they were just funny.

        Tom (“the original”) Arnold, of Clermont County's Union Township, decided everybody in the family needed a nickname and went on to assign them. His sons, Scott, Steve and Sam, are “Big Boy,” “Chunk,” and “Whip.” His daughter, Suzanne, is “Cute One.” His wife Sandy: “Love.”

Gordon Williams nicknamed his brother-in-law, Jeff Hughes, "Girth God" (Steven M. Herppich photo) | ZOOM |

        As a unit, they call themselves “Big T and the Five Ss.”

        Name-callers said they created monikers for friends and relatives “all in good fun.” Most of their victims were equally jovial.

        But some of them came with a little bite.

        Michael Rieck of North Avondale nicknamed his asthmatic cat McKenna, after “the president of a smelly St. Bernard chemical plant” near the spot where the cat (Skeezix) was rescued.

        In Springdale, Linda Money's husband, Mike, started calling her “Spot” because “every time I eat, I dribble on my front,” she says. “At first I was a little bit ticked off, but I think it's kind of cool now. It's certainly more unique than "Linda.”'

        Jeanette Yvonne Wray Horganof Green Township and Santa Barbara, Calif., was born the fourth daughter of four children. Because she was not male, as expected, “My mom gave her the nickname "Jinx,' because she felt jinxed,” according to another daughter, Patricia Sigrid Wray Tressler of Hartwell.

        Jeff Hughes of Sharonville otherwise known as “Girth God,” made the mistake of exposing his abs — or the area where they were last seen — to a friend and relative in the glow of a Gatlinburg campfire. The name stuck, and, like his waistline, spread.

NICKNAMES

Kids, apparently, are frequently given nicknames. Many of the utterances that Tristaters go by were just that — attempts by young children, usually siblings, to say their real names. Others were based on individual characteristics.     Some examples:     “Boo Boo,” for a brother who always had scabs on his knees.     “Wooter,” for a baby who passed gas while being held.     “Skippy,” for a girl whose first steps were skips.     “Gooch” (originally Scoochie), for a girl who liked to scoot.     “Chewy,” for Matthew.     “Moose” for a sister with huge, flaring nostrils.     “Beebe” for baby.     “Rainbow” for Lorraine.     “Uncle Pickle Bunny,” for an uncle willing to be called “Bunny.”     “Jeannie Weenie, ultimately “Wiener,” for a sister named Jeanne.     Adults added their own twists:     “Putzer” for a girl who took her time.     “Chattie Maddie from Cincinnati” for a girl who talked.     “Rit” (dye) for a girl who tanned dark in the summer.     “Quinn” (as in Dr. . . . Medicine Woman) for a woman dedicated to her husband's health.     “Ward,” “June,” and “Beaver” for all the Cleaver folks.

        Andrew Troller of Terrace Park, is known as “Pitter.”

        “My sister came up with it because, when I get something ... I never, ever let go of it — just like pitt bulls (dogs).”

        Chris Gaietto Lemmon remembered Eugene Gaietto (an uncle), who was known as “Nips” until his death — because “he took a bottle until he was well past the age of 3.”
       

Not so funny
        Barbara S. Hurley of Union Township is annoyed by people who assume she wants to be called “Barb.”

        “It must be a Midwestern thing,” she says. “I grew up in the South, and never once did anyone shorten Barbara or try to give me a nickname.”

        Here, “Whenever I introduce myself as Barbara, I always hear, "Hi, Barb.' Barbara fits me and I like it — and I miss it.”

        Robert Robisonof Hyde Park says he does not accept “derogatory nicknames that are cruel, abusive and destructive.” At work, he says, he has been called “Slick” and, with a co-worker, “Dumb and Dumber” in a less-than-flattering style.

        “It is often difficult for the targeted victim to shake or shed the abusive treatment such a name creates,” Mr. Robison says.

        Most “victims” laughed it off.

        Like Jim “Two Treats” Crooks of Wyoming named by his domino buddies “because of my ability and desire one night to eat two Graeter's ice-cream cones.”

        Like Matthew “Moo” Adam of Mount Lookout who exaggerated his Kansas cattle background in the company of Boston friends who had never ventured west. “I used to tease them that I took a covered wagon to school and that ... I was going back home to take care of the cattle farm,” he says.

        Bonnie Hasty, of Union, laughs when she recalls her son, Ryan, and his baseball days as “Butta,” thanks to a few errors in the outfield.

        Ryan's younger brother, Gavin, got his own nickname, even more clever: I can't believe it's not Ryan.

        “Having a nickname is fun, and usually no one else has a name like yours,” says Gregory Joseph Robert “Wigs” Zix (like he needed another name).

        “Yes, I have a full head of hair. No, I never played with wigs as a child. But yes, I did wiggle when I bowled in a youth bowling league,” he says, describing an unusual approach to the alley.

        Matthew White of Erlanger likes to be called “Alien.”

        “Let's just say I'm out of this world,” he says.

        Mark Milner of Melbourne is the “Dudemonster” because “I called everyone Dude, and I love horror movies.”
       

Play on words
        Some nicknames were the result of word play.

        Suzanne Davenport Wilson, formerly of Mariemont, still responds to “Tropnevad” because a friend, Andy Schapals, “liked to call people by their last names spelled backward.

        Stephen Michael Ash of Norwood first saw his nickname (a combination of initials and surname) on an Air Force name tag that read Sgt. S.M. Ash. “Consequently, they called me "Sgt. Smash.”' The name was revived when a supervisor with a stack of General Motors paychecks bellowed, “Who the hell is "Smash' (S.M. Ash)?”

        And, apparently, you are what you drink.

        Bill Schmidbauer of Milford remembers a bad experience as a student at an Athens, Ohio, bar, where, after two Stroh's beers, “I got deathly ill. My comrades immediately dubbed me "Two Beers,' which eventually turned into "Tubes' or "Tubey.'

        Mike Pelzel of White Oak an upstanding member of Die Deutsche Buben (The German Boys), was caught drinking Coca-Cola at a Cincinnati Oktoberfest.

        Today, he is known as “Coke Boy.”

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