Nicknames are funny.  Not everyone gets one.  And not everyone who gets one knows he's got one. 

I haven't had many (that I know of) over the years, probably because my last name is so much fun to say that whenever I've been involved in team sports, where nicknames seem to be the rule, it's been deemed perfectly adequate.  It helps that it rhymes with "go!"




But I have been in situations and milieux where almost everyone had a funny or affectionate nickname, where I've felt a little cheated that my surname was felt to be enough. 

More recently, various diminutives have popped up to mark special relationships, but nothing that has much of a story behind it.  A couple of people call me "Mikey" — something that started as a joke, but has turned into an endearment.

I have a Hungarian friend who calls me Mikey, for example, and in a "spoof" on what we call "Hunglish" she tacks a Hungarian post-preposition onto the English name to get Mikey-kém, .

Michael in Hungarian is Mihaly (pronounced mee-high) and the diminutive is Misi (pronounced mee-shee).  Because Hungarian uses post-prepositions, you can tack the possessive right onto the end of someone's name — my dear friend Csaba calls me Misikém — "My Mikey," essentially.  Again, this started as a joke, but is now a term of endearment.  (Likewise, I call him Csabikam — "My Csabi".) 

Back home, there are very few people who call me by my given name, Prince Michael Jackson Mennonno.  No, just kidding.  But even my mother has dropped Michael for Mike.  I think my father was the last to use Michael with any regularity, and so I guess there's something a little poignant somehow in it for me, though I'm not overly sentimental.

Friends of the blog may remember my banging on in the past about how I've never felt any particular attachment to my given name.  It's hard to when it's something like Mike, I think, which every other boy was named when I was born.   But people have to call you something, right? 

Well, now that I've moved offices, I'm the new Mike in town.  As most Mikes will tell you, coming into an office situation with more than one Mike can be complicated.  I mean on top of the already very complex issues of who gets called what around the office. 

Even though the other Mike was younger and hadn't been with the school as long, I was the new Mike in the department and it was decided on the first day that I would have to give up my given name.

Initially there was a Thing 1, Thing 2 approach, but that seemed almost like ranking us, and didn't stick. Big Mike and Little Mike didn't seem right either, for reasons I won't get into. 

We occupy offices at opposite ends of the hall, so eventually the fever to rename us died down.

But recently our resident nick-namer has been at work on me.  She's actually been at work on my nickname for a couple of years, even before I joined her department.  It's strange how some people just have that particular superpower — to bestow nicknames.  But she's definitely got it.  And once she gets hold of yours, you'll never shake it.

She started by gently, good-naturedly chipping away at that surname.  Mennonno became Meh-noo-noo.  Eventually that was shortened to Meh-noons.  Lately others in the office have picked up on it, and have begun to drop the first syllable, calling me "Noons".  I am beginning to hear the inevitable "Nooner" and "Nooners" now.

Nicknames are funny.

It's wishful thinking, but I'll take it.