Nicknames

I'm a huge fan of giving people nicknames, especially people I like. I often shorten people's names – something I've done since I was a little girl. (My mom said I started doing this when I was really young and it's something she found amusing since she didn't know where I got the idea from.)

I'm not exactly sure when it started, but sometime after my accident I started calling my mom "Di" (her name's Diane). She said that I'm the only one that can get away with it because she wouldn't like it from anyone else, but she knows I mean it as a term of endearment, so she likes it coming from me. (She's my best friend, so I had to give her a nickname, since that's what I do to people I like.)

My youngest sister's name is Chandra. She came to our family when she was four (she's adopted), and it wasn't long before we all started calling her Channie. I've called her lots of names over the years, like Chan and Chan the Man. Chandra and I have a nickname that we started calling each other a few years ago… Ponsie. The origins of the nickname are an inside joke between us that we don't tell very many people. It's just something fun we do.

My nickname growing up was always Bear. When I was born I had a light layer of fuzzy hair all over my body like a lot of babies do, so my family started calling me Bear when I a few weeks old. The name stuck and everyone knew me as Bear, Heather Bear or Bearsy when I was a child. I've pretty much outgrown this nickname, although I'm still occasionally referred to as Bear by some of my family members and even a few people at church.

When I meet new people and make new friends I always like to find out if they had/have any nicknames, what they are and how they came about.