Sobriquet

so . bri . quet /noun/ nickname, pen name, epithet, pseudonym, handle, moniker

NAMES – PART TWO

Today I was at the checkout counter in a store when the manager came by rolling a shopping cart. He asked the cashier, “Where’s Billy?” The young woman looked puzzled. “Who’s Billy?” she asked.  The manager repeated, “Billy. Billy.” She said she didn’t know a Billy who worked at the store. The gentleman sounded annoyed when he asked her again about Billy before wheeling the cart toward an aisle. In a little while, a young man came in and went to the register next to the clerk’s. “Do you know a Billy?” she asked him. “I’m Billy,” he said.  “That’s my nickname. My middle name is William, but people who know me call me Billy.” The young woman  giggled and called out to the manager, “Hey, Billy is here.”

I hope you aren’t disappointed that I am still on the name thing, but I found last week’s exploration of the word appellation so interesting  that I wanted to look into  names a little further and have some fun with it.  This time I’m looking at the topic under a different word, sobriquet. A sobriquet, as you can see from the definitions, is a nickname but there’s quite a bit involved in the word.

I added sobriquet to my vocabulary when I was in college. My roommate and I challenged ourselves to  find a new word each day. At the end of the day, we shared our new word. We did this for quite a while during one semester. It might seem a bit weird that we did this–as if we didn’t have enough to occupy our time, what with studying and working to pay most of our tuition and fees.  I discovered the word sobriquet in the library where I worked and gleefully shared it with my roomie, who latched onto it as one of her own. The last syllable of  the word can be pronounced as either “kay” or “ket.”  Both pronunciations are considered correct. Its origin is French; therefore,  it has the flavor of a borrowed word on it.

Would you believe that there are people who don’t like their name?  Sheepishly, I admit that I was one of them. When I was a youngster, my middle name, May (for my birth month), seemed too parochial to me, so I tried giving it a little sophistication by spelling it “Mae.” That lasted until I was married and was able to ditch that middle name altogether in favor of my maiden name. I don’t know whether a dislike for their maiden name has anything to do with it, but a large number of women, after marriage, use their original surname as their middle name; some even hyphenate the two  names. Men never seem to have any such angst about their last name after they’re married.

There is also the two-part name, often hyphenated, that identifies ethnic groups, at least, here in the U.S.  So we have Asian-American, Anglo-American, Italian-American, Irish-American, Caribbean-American  and others. In the late 1980s African-American, now used without the hyphen,  emerged as the  identifying name for Black Americans. The use of Native American is more recent and is not hyphenated.  All of these names serve a valuable cultural purpose.

In this regard, some well-known African-Americans showed their rejection of the old slave names they had inherited by undertaking a very public name change. In the sports world, Cassius Clay eloquently advocated for his new name Mohammed Ali. And Ferdinand Louis Alcindor (Lou Alcindor) changed his name to Kareem Abdul  Jabbar. These two sobriquets became world famous just like the men they identified.

In  the business world, some name  changes were made to make a product or a company more attractive and marketable.  Many companies in creating a  name make the first letter of each important word in their name combine to spell a word, thus developing a catchy acronym. The word acronym is greatly misused, however. There is a distinction between an acronym and an abbreviation.  The acronym must spell a pronounceable word. So FedEx  is an acronym, blending parts of “Federal” and “Express” and sounds like a word,  but AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph) is not an acronym, just an abbreviation. The bland company name Consumer Value Store became CVS, much more marketable and memorable, but it is not an acronym. It doesn’t spell a word; neither does Kentucky Fried Chicken’s  well known KFC.

Some easily recognized business names nationally and internationally are the result of changes.  Quantum Computer Services is now AOL (America On Line).  Sound of Music electronics changed to become  Best Buy, our favorite go-to store for electronics.  Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web became Yahoo. I used to think that Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels  had something to do with that name until I read about the change, but maybe it does.

Has the nickname part of our definition  of sobriquet made you think of schooldays and the nicknames you had for friends–and those who were not so friendly? Young people are good at coining epithets for their peers. Sometimes the teachers come in for their share of nicknames, too, depending on their personalities, how they grade, and quite often on their appearance. In my middle elementary school years, the teacher who scared us with both her looks and her words was dubbed Granny T, the “T” being for Tigress.

Some famous people have interesting monikers. Shakespeare is The Bard of Avon, Emily Dickinson is the Nun of Amherst, and Mohammed Ali is  The Greatest. There are people who don’t like nicknames. I heard a woman who doesn’t like them say she gave her children names that couldn’t be clipped into nicknames. It seems to me that some of the younger parents nowadays choose names that cannot be easily reduced to a nickname. Try working on a nickname for “Unique” or “Treasure.” But a nickname can be a term of endearment, one that a spouse may  use to show tenderness, or  that parents and siblings in a family use to express mutual affection.

In ancient times as well as today, naming a child has always mattered. Each time that Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge,  was about  to choose a name for one of her three children, there was a transatlantic flurry of speculation  before the big reveal. Family members way down the royal line came in for recognition. But long ago,  the naming of One Baby was extra special. No  parent today can claim the supernatural help that one young woman had in naming her child. The angel told Mary: “Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” That is a name above all names!

Blessings,

Judith

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“You can’t discover new lands if you’re afraid to leave the shore.”   (Heard at a workshop for educators)