Musings on nicknames

Rini

Siren

We have a pup named Siren. (Her registered name is Timbreblue Drives Too Fast)  Siren is not hard to say. So how come I find  myself calling her Si-renny or Si-Si or Rennie? "Sigh" seems sort of sad but I've used that too. For awhile I called her Ren, but then I realized that among our pups from about that same generation, we have a Rainey, a Rini, and a Riri (pronounced ree-ree). I guess I will have to break down and just stick with Siren. If I can.

What is it that makes us give dogs nicknames in addition to their call names? Walt calls most of our dogs by their real names, but I tend to use:

Ivy --- Ivy-Divy or Ivers or Ives
Blue -- Blue-boo
Party -- Party Girl
Juliet -- Ju-ju bean
Chippy -- Chipster
Devon -- Devvie
Dallas -- D-Dog or Big D
Kara -- Karoo
Katie -- Katydid

I don't really understand it since most of the nicknames are actually longer than the call names. Isn't it just as easy to say Dallas as Big D?

When my daughter was born, we (for some reason) decided we wanted her called Johannah instead of any of the usual nicknames. I carefully wrote out "Johannah" on everything that went to daycare with her, But since we didn't give them a nickname to call her, she became Jo-Jo, which I thought sounded a bit monkeyish. So we started calling her Joey to combat that. Of course once she started school, she decided that was a boy's name and informed her teachers she wanted to be called Margaret, which was her first name.  We still called her Joey at home. She settled on Jo eventually but her family was slower to catch on,.

One day when they were in high school, my son Travis (Trav or T) answered the phone. "You have the wrong number." When he hung up, he said, "Some guy wanted Joe." Johannah happened to be in the room and wailed, "Nooooo! He asked for Jo!" Fortunately for her, the boy did call back and thus began her longest high school romance. She is now Johannah or Jo.

I'd better get back to the girls -- the Chipmeister and Ivy-Divy-Dabber-Do need pedicures.

Sharyn

Rainey