By Paul M. Banks
From now on we can refer to Demetri McCamey as “Baby Ben”, as in “Baby Ben Gordon.” Or we can simply call him “Cames.” Just don’t for the LOVE OF GOD call him “D. Mac”. There are already plenty of subpar “nicknames” falling into this category, lame abbreviations such as: D. Wade (Dwanye Wade), D. Rose (Derrick Rose), JaBo (Jason Bohannon), A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez), I-Rod (Ivan Rodriguez) and D. Will (Deron Williams). These aren’t nicknames, just good references for brevity’s sake; a way to refer to players in text-message friendly form.
Nicknames today need to get closer to the outrageous. Follow the example set by the mafia, fraternity pledge classes and 1920s era baseball teams. Like my friend Big Saj said, “people love it when you give them nicknames, even if they’re really not that applicable, they enjoy the fact that you took the time to create a nickname for them.” SO TRUE!
When I was on Fulbright in Germany, I named the most socially/politically conservative girl in our group “Red State”, because she also happened to have lived in four of the most conservative states in the Union; and she wore red half the time and carted around red luggage. Good nicknames quickly foster social bonds at worst, replace the person’s first name at best. We desperately NEED to get back to the days of Oil Can Boyd, Boo Wade, Spud Webb, Blue Moon Odom and Mugsy Bogues. Also someone, somewhere, needs to be nicknamed “Sidecar” for some reason; any reason.
As the ABC series “Lost” wraps up its final season, I should really thank the character James ‘Sawyer’ Ford (a.k.a. this generation’s Hans Solo) for bringing this phenomenon back to a major network television show. We all know that hearing characters called “Freckles”, “Chewy”, “Jumbotron”, and “Oliver Twist” had a lot to do with the franchise’s popularity.
Although I am against the social tour de force that is MTV’s “Jersey Shore” on multiple levels, I REALLY appreciate that they have a “JWow”, “Snooki” and some dude named Mike that can legitimately get away with being referred to as “The Situation.”
The fictional drama character, and the fictional reality tv character have set great examples for us- the most bizarre nicknames tend to be the stickiest, and the best of the oddities prompt other people to ask “Hey, how did you get that nickname?” So let’s follow their lead in creating new and better sports nicknames. But remember: you can’t give yourself a nickname…that’s one of the many great Seinfeldian lessons of our time.