prillalar | Nicknames

Nicknames

So, why is it that we hate reading nicknames in fic? That seems to be a huge peeve of a lot of people. And I often feel that way too. But I'm not sure just why it is.

Let's face it, we use nicknames a lot in real life. Nicknaming builds intimacy. (I recall how in Stephen Fry's memoir, he describes how, when he was at school, he carefully came up with a nickname to use with the boy he was in love with. And how one of his greatest moments of pleasure was when he overheard another boy use the same nickname and be ticked off because it was okay for Fry to use it, but no one else.) The intimacy of friendship, the intimacy of lovers.

If you are, or have been in a long term relationship, do you normally call your partner by their given name when you are alone? Or do you use one or more nicknames and terms of endearment?

Maybe "alone" is the key here. If my partner used those terms in front of other people, I'd be mortified by how cutesy they are. And how it opened up our intimacy to other people. Maybe by reading these nicknames, we're unconsciously feeling like we're intruding on something we shouldn't be seeing.

Does that make any sense to you? Or do you feel your dislike, if you do dislike nicknames in fic, stems from something else?

If the nicknames aren't overly sappy or cute, do you feel the same way? Back in the day, when I was writing a series of TXF stories about Skinner and Pendrell, they used nicknames for each other: Skipper and Professor, because of a Gilligan's Island thing from when they first got together. I think if I were writing that now, I wouldn't use the nicknames quite so much, but I did like the feeling of intimacy they created. I'm not sure how my readers felt about it, though.

I guess a lot of this comes down to the fact that we can't have people speaking in fiction as they would speak in real life, or we'd be bored to death. So what we accept as realistic in written form is a stylized version of reality. I suppose that's what makes good dialogue tricky to write. It has to be interesting but still seem in character for the individual.

Instead of asking you for examples of nicknames that you hate, because that could go on forever, do you have any instances of fanfic nicknames that you like?

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

I don't mind them that much in fics, and you're right, couples in RL use them continuously.

What I really, really, really hate are those Remus/Sirius fics where they call each other Moony and Padfoot. They just make me want to spork.

In my Mulder/Krycek stories, Mulder always called Krycek "Alex", and, of course, "Fox" was never used except as an attention-getting device. Alex often referred to Mulder as "gorgeous", and Mulder's "term of endearment" for his lover was "you prick".

My Clark doesn't have a term for Lex, but Lex calls him "baby" a lot. People who say they don't like this particular usage puzzle me.

(For the record, my "pet name" for my husband is a letter. His given name, and the name he calls himself, is Jacob. His friends call him Jake, but I call him J, on paper and out loud. It's really just a shortened form of his name...)

Man, I use nicknames all the time. I've been known to have to *remind* myself to use a good friend's given name every once in a while, just to break things up. And, well, while I'm probably an extreme case, it's true that most people do some version of the same.

I think... I think that nicknames in fic would have much less of a bad rap if they weren't so often used in stories that are already terrible, OOC, and overly schmoopy.

I think that the *nickname* might not be the trouble, so much as the quality of writing in general. But... I still hesitate to use nicknames in my own fiction, or even 'too many' terms of endearment, whether or not it would fit for the characters. I'm gun-shy, and so MANY things get overused.

I mean, how many people are sick unto death of Spike calling people 'luv?' He *does*, sure, but... man. Sometimes I think adorable canon is far more of a detriment to fandom than *fanon*.

And I wonder how I'd feel about the 'hotshot' thing if more than a handful of people had ever written John/Wally. (JL)

The occassional nickname is fine. It's the overuse that gets to me. Even when Hermione called Ron 'Ronald' more than once for no apparent reason in the PoA movie.

The nickname I liked the best I think, is when

flambeau got Krycek to call Mulder 'lisitsa' (I think!) on the sly. Russian for 'Fox'. I thought that was cute.

This is a fairly weird example of a nickname, but I love it. In

glossing's Book of Daniel, Giles calls Oz by his given name, Daniel, while everybody else uses the nickname Oz. So it becomes almost a pet name, and certainly a marker of their intimacy, the specialness of the relationship.

Interesting--I hadn't thought of the correlation here, but I *never* make up nicknames for anyone I know (including long-term lovers) and I also have strong distaste for almost all nickname-usage in fanfiction. Ditto for endearments, for that matter.

That said, I recall with fondness a bit in Hth's "Three Kings," a Ray/Ray story, where Vecchio calls Kowalski "tough guy" in front of Kowalski's father, and then has a moment of total embarrassment at letting out something so private-to-them in that context. Something that non-sappy I can deal with (or, for that matter, snarky-teasing nicknames, like some other Ray/Ray story [can't recall which] where RayV calls RayK "Clairolski.")

The thing about nicknames is that, other than the usual and accepted shortening/changing of a person's given name they're generally kind of weird and off-the-wall. (e.g. Once upon a time, in my group of friends there was a guy we all called Pyro Tim -- sometimes shortened to just Pyro -- in the aftermath of a very odd bonfire on the beach.) And then there are jokey names that start out as a sort of teasing, affectionate insult and stick (though these are usually only used by one person) -- say, Ron calling Harry 'Harriet' or Harry calling Ron 'Ronnikins'. My office mate calls me by my last name, and she's the only person who does. I love it, because 1) I really like my last name and 2) it feels kind of special, affectionate maybe, that she's bothering to address me in a way that nobody else does. When we weren't fighting, my first husband called me Ms. B (the first letter of his last name).

I think the people who've done the best at capturing the nuance of nicknaming people is whoever wrote The Sentinel. The nicknames that Jim came up with for Blair were just genius and (at least IMO) showed off both Jim's cleverness and irreverence and his affection for Blair. And Blair's subtle pleasure at hearing those nicknames showed his affection for Jim. A lot of TS fanfic tries to capture that 'nickname magic' either by using canon nicknames or making up new ones, but it's a very tricky thing to make work.

Man, I am just gassing on and ON! I guess what I'm trying to say is that unless a writer has a deft touch and understanding of how nicknaming works in RL, I'd rather not see it addressed in fic. The Moony/Padfoot/Wormtail thing *is* canon, though I suspect Remus doesn't like his nearly as much as Sirius does, and Voldemort uses 'Wormtail' because it's such a perfectly cruel and ironic way of sticking the knife in Peter, while seeming perfectly innocent on the surface.

As for shortening names, I know many people in RL who get *very* offended if you shorten their Susan/Suzanne to Sue/Susie or their Victoria to Vicky, so I'm kind of wary of thinking of that kind of shortening (truncating?) as either welcome or a sign of affection/intimacy. And some names just don't lend themselves to that sort of thing. (e.g. I think both Remi/Remy and Siri sound idiotic. OTOH, I can imagine one or the other gleefully seizing on it and using it in the aftermath of it appearing in a florid, overdone Rita Skeeter article.)

I was really startled to discover how much people hate "Remy" and "Siri". I just thought they were logical shortenings of the characters names. Every so often I toy with the idea of going back to the one story where I used those nicknames and editing them out, but then I decide life is too short.

And heck, I thought I'd coined 'Mione when I first used it.

What I really, really, really hate are those Remus/Sirius fics where they call each other Moony and Padfoot. They just make me want to spork.

Hee! And I was just about to comment that I usually can't stand nicknames in Harry Potter fic, with the exception of Moony and Padfoot (and, to a lesser extent, Prongs and Wormtail). They're absolutely ridiculous as nicknames, of course, but James et al. did come up with them and--presumably--use them for more than teasing Snape on the Marauder's Map. I think it all rather...sweetly dorky. So I find their use in MWPP-era fics endearing, and their use in post-Azkaban fics bittersweetly nostalgic. Either way, I enjoy it, as long as the nicknames are used in moderation.

I don't mind nicknames in fanfic too much unless they're cutesy and then they make me gag. The ones that work best, I think, aren't necessarily the logical ones, such as Foxy or 'Mione but the ones which spring from weird situations or likenesses to things on TV. (I went to school with a boy who spent seven years being called "Mooncat" because his accent sounded like a TV puppet called the Mooncat. It suited him, though probably less so now that he's a thirtysomething transport logistics manager.)

I think it's perhaps coming from a culture where nicknames are absolutely the norm, and usually formed by taking either the forename or surname and shortening it or adding a -Y or -O to it.

So in Harry Potter fanfic, Dean Thomas could be called Deano, Oliver Wood Woody and Ron Weasley Ronaldo (though probably only the muggleborns would call him that)

I've noticed though, that people in established relationships tend to mark out their territory by using the full version of their partners' names when everyone else uses the contraction. One friend is Steve to the world, but Stephen to his wife.

I actually don't mind nicknames, b/c just like you describe, both my husband and I use them and most members in my family have them for each other. However, I think some aspects that were brought up so far are really crucial: one is the overuse and/or stereotypical use of a name. I'm sure if I'd read only one remy fic i would find it odd but not annoying...it's the repetition that does the damage (same, actually with canon names that get overused). Someone else pointed out that OOC fics have a tendency to overuse nicknames, so that he nickname leaves a bad taste by association alone (like, I could actually see jc and lance call one another josh and james simply to create a private space, but when i see those names now, all my warning signs go up, b/c it usually is a particular characterization that goes along with it). Finally, I think we are very worried about feminizing characters, and I think many of the run-of-the-mill nicknames tend to do that (at least to my ear). Maybe gay couples all over the world call each other baby, honey, sweets all the time, but to me it sounds weird.

I really like your idea, though, that we might be feeling too intimate somewhere when presuming to know...odd, how there apparently seems to be no issue making up sexual preferences and kinks yet the *naming* retains such power!!! [then again i'm wondering if the nickname anxiety resides somewhere close to Mary Sue as the "ultimate fanfic impropriety" as someone described it so beautifully today in my lj :-)]

I think that nicknames in fic would have much less of a bad rap if they weren't so often used in stories that are already terrible, OOC, and overly schmoopy.

I think you nailed it right there.

I'm gonna blush and confess that I actually like 'Mione, even though it takes a lot of shit. "Hermione" is kinda unwieldy for longterm use, the stressed "Her-" seems to drop naturally (maybe it's just me), and "Hermy" is the only other logical name-based alternative *makes face*.

Whereas, if the Trio were in my group of friends, Ron would be Rat-boy, Hermione would be Smart-ass or Smarty-pants (except that one's already mine), and Harry would prolly be Scar-head just to show Malfoy how utterly insignifcant he really is. =)

I *like* nicknames. Shortened ones, or just bizarre ones. What I hate are ones that, as

thete1 and

cathexys both point out, are widespread *and* tied to particular characterizations. Xanpet and Remy will never, ever sound right to me. But Xan or Moony is just normal, if it fits the rhythm of someone's speech - there's a difference, however, between friendly nicknames and 'ship names, I think. I've written some characters who *love* coming up with nicknames for friends and lovers, but that's usually in RPF, rather than FPF.

At the same time, my gf and I very rarely use our given names with each other in private, to the point that I get a little freaked when she *does* call me by it, like your mom using all your names to get your attention while yelling at you. It's an infinite variety of ever-evolving nicknames - but you're right, if one gets used in public, it's really embarrassing.

The weirdest thing here is that so many of us in fandom/on LJ go by noms de plume - when I meet

kindkit, for instance, it's going to be hard to call her anything but Kit. That's who she is in my mind, and while it's sometimes problematic switching back and forth between my own name and 'Gloss', I'm pretty happy with the person Gloss is.

The weirdest thing here is that so many of us in fandom/on LJ go by noms de plume - when I meet [info]kindkit, for instance, it's going to be hard to call her anything but Kit. That's who she is in my mind, and while it's sometimes problematic switching back and forth between my own name and 'Gloss', I'm pretty happy with the person Gloss is.

Dude, the noms-de-plume thing... totally. I have a *really* hard time using people's real ('real?') names, even when I've known them for years. Thankfully, most of my friends seem cool with that, but it's one of the few things that work, for me, about using 'Te' online. I never have to put anyone in the position of having to decide which name to use, because, well, there are very few people currently in my life who *don't* call me Te now.

re kit: when we were at our conference this spring, it was incredibly hard not to call people by their lj nicknames...after all, there were folks in the audience that were just run of the mill academics and *not* fanfic folks...i know we all messed up a couple of times :-)

Let's see. First things first:

If you are, or have been in a long term relationship, do you normally call your partner by their given name when you are alone? Or do you use one or more nicknames and terms of endearment?

I do normally use my husband's given name - his *full* given name. Most people call him by a nickname, which I tend to use in front of other people only. There are also a few nicknames I've given him, most of which I don't use around other people. We do use endearments in public - honey, hon, sweetheart, and so on.

YES WE ARE FULL OF THE SAP. :)

Instead of asking you for examples of nicknames that you hate, because that could go on forever, do you have any instances of fanfic nicknames that you like?

I've always like the Sentinel nickname "chief", but that's canon. There are a couple instances in canon where I just come over all SQUEEE. The first is a relatively early episode, where Jim uses "chief" towards someone else, and Blair goes all "buh? hey!" for just a second. The other is a later episode, where Jim holds out a phone without looking and says something like "It's for you, chief", and his boss goes for it, and Blair goes "He means me, Simon" - the nickname went from something Jim just used towards people generally to something he used only for Blair, and guh. Just guh. (Apparently, that particular nickname is one the actor uses a lot, ad-libbed, but I love how Sentinel made use of it.)

On the non-canon side...sometimes, rarely, "Sev" for Severus Snape has worked for me. When it works, it *works*, but when it doesn't work, it's a horrid thing. And it mostly doesn't work - the story has to have an edge of unsentimentality about it that few stories manage.

A lot of TS fanfic tries to capture that 'nickname magic' either by using canon nicknames or making up new ones, but it's a very tricky thing to make work.

The trouble is that a lot of people are not as clever as Richard Burgi, really, since apparently he's an inverterate nicknamer. Or maybe that a lot of TS writers are too sentimental - most of the fannish nicknames end up being sappy. (And thereby I have lost many hunks of hair.)

I've been known to have to *remind* myself to use a good friend's given name every once in a while, just to break things up.

When

basingstoke came to my in-laws with us, I was in the kitchen with my MIL, and she goes "You call [Bas's real name] Bas?"

Me: Er...yeah.

Her: That's a very odd nickname.

Me: I guess.

It had never struck me as odd before that I used that when speaking to her in person. :D

Cool, a 'like' question rather than a 'peeve' one. I need context to like nicks, which for Moony and Padfoot/Paddy are provided in canon (love dorks), but get twitchy when authors come up with their own out of the blue (it's ok if they make up some backstory for the new nick). Also a big yes on the moderation thing - I don't think MWPP were calling each other that in public, or the Marauders' Map would be no secret.

It's like a familiarity-thing: the characters can call each other what they like because they're friends, but the author please to be keeping her cutesy Remmie and Siri away from the characters.

I'm quite interested in stories in which Remus or Sirius try to use Padfoot or Moony, and gets rebuffed by the other because it's no longer them.

*laughing* It's HARD. She's *Bas*. She's... well, she's *Bas*...

I don't mind Moony and Padfoot when used sparingly in the fic. It makes sense to me, at least coming from Sirius, that they'd fall back into old patterns with each other.

Didn't fans start calling Krycek "Ratboy", and the show wound up using it? Or am I hallucinating again?

My husband and I have a mutual nickname, Monkey. It's probably annoying as hell on those few occasions when we use it in public...

I guess it all rests of characterization. If you can make me believe Obi-Wan calls his master "Quiggy", well, go you. But it will not be EASY to make me believe it.

I think it all rather...sweetly dorky.

Hee! I'm all for sweet dorks. :)

I need context to like nicks

I think that's key. If the nickname arises naturally in the story, then it's part of the characterization.

I'm quite interested in stories in which Remus or Sirius try to use Padfoot or Moony, and gets rebuffed by the other because it's no longer them.

Yes! It's a good shorthand for "those people we were back at school".

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 6

Nicknames

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject