NAME GAME

I’ve been thinking about names lately, nick and otherwise.

They say your porn name is a combo of your first pet and the first street you lived on…so I’m Beautiful Bonnie Hill or Dopey Lake Moraine (my mother could not make up her mind what to call the stupid cat and, apparently, neither could the locals about what to call the road where we lived) or Corky County Road Three. Corky was our Newfoundland dog. You decide. Sigh…I can’t even catch a porn name break.

I like my given name…Barbara. There aren’t too many in my general age group, which is nice. It has reasonable diminutives…Barb (not my fav), Barbie, Babs (don’t EVEN go there though my friend Marne always calls me that) or Bobbie. I’ve even met the person I was named after, which, if you’re not named after a family member, not everyone can say.

What I am looking for is an uber cool nickname. Something with panache. Descriptive in a “good” way. Unique. And I have found it…Twinkie. I hear you all snorting out there! I’m serious! Really.

I can thank my friend Linda for this newfound obsession. In casual conversation she mentioned her friend, Twinkie. STOP the conversation. Whoa Nelly. Back up the truck. Twinkie? “Yeah, Twinkie.” Wow. I could hear *The Hills Are Alive from the Sound of Music* swelling in the background. I made her say it again. “Twinkie” Now I was hearing Maria from West Side Story rolling through my brain. Linda rolled her eyes and gave me her patented “You are SUCH an idiot.” look.

I don’t know how Twinkie got her name - from a favorite childhood snack? If so, I’d be Ring Ding or Ho Ho (behave yourself) (and is that the daughter of a … never mind). But no matter where the name comes from…it is a name you can stand up out loud with…it is cool to the power of ten.

I did have a pet name as a child, several, in fact. Sometimes my dad called me Icky. I think he came up with that from the “special” look on my face when I was filling my diaper with a *big* one. The one that stuck was Tinker Bell. How lame is that? Close to Twinkie, you say, but not close enough for me. You know how I know? Try this sentence out loud…”Don’t *make* me call Twinkie.” Or how about “She went all Twinkie on him.” Now try those with Tinker Bell. See what I mean?

I know I cannot purloin someone else’s nickname. I think it even states in the Nickname Official Rule Manual (NORM) you cannot make up your own. It’s supposed to be a naturally occurring event. Like when you did the half gainer off the church steps and you have been called Grace ever since. Or Stinky for someone with the last name Butts (thanks, Jeff). My friend Bob told me he and his buddies called each other by their mother’s names. That’s cool.

But Twinkie…now THAT‘S a nickname you can put on a name tag with pride!