More on Monikers

While I previously wrote that I had never cared for nicknames, that does not mean that I totally eschewed them.

There are some nicknames that I have received that I cherish with great affection. However, they are not nicknames that I would use professionally or allow others to use.

When my sister Roma married Tony nearly 37 years ago, I was ecstatic to finally have a brother in the family. I adored Tony!

Even at that young age I was aware of the fact that in some cultures people may have several names ~ and that receiving a new name in acknowledgement of a certain milestone was considered a great honor.

So imagine the sense of pride and honor I felt when Tony had christened me "Nerch!"

Only Tony and Roma, and later their son Michael, were allowed to call me "Nerch."

Around the same time that I had received "Nerch," Roma and Tony were friends with a couple from their church who had a young son with Down's Syndrome.

Andy was a source of joy and delight to his parents and his many siblings. He was also the source of my next new name.

Because the challenges of Down's Syndrome made more difficult for Andy, than most others, to pronounce my name, the best he could do was call me "Nagonga."

And thus to Roma and Tony, I also became known as "Nagonga," or "Gonga" for short.

Again, this was a name only restricted to my immediate family. No on else even knew about it. I made sure of that ~ until now.

Workplaces were another area where I had received nicknames.

While working as a textile artist, coworkers would call me "Ringie" or "Ring." That was acceptable.

But the most interesting workplace nickname I received was when I worked as metallurgical laboratory technician.

That was many, many moons ago, shortly after I graduated from college.

It was the first job that I had that was worthy of the physics degree that I earned. Heck! It sure beat studying the laws of thermodynamics by observing the rate of heat transfer from a hot grill to a cold piece of meat while I worked as a short order cook at a greasy spoon.

Because I was the only female on the first shift in the met lab, Wayne, the head technician who trained me, christened me "Ralph." He did so because I had proven myself to be "one of the guys." (We spelled it "RalPH" to reflect the PH factor testing that is found in most labs.)

Being nicknamed "Ralph" was actually amusing. Everyone ~ from the janitors right up to the general manager ~ called me Ralph. The whole plant knew me as Ralph ~ and that was no small thing considering that the plant had several hundred employees!

It got to the point where I would deliberately cultivate mystery by refusing to tell people my real name ~ not that they would have been able to guess it. And believe me, there were many people who tried ~ and failed ~ to solve the mystery of my real name.

I wonder if there are any people now who may occasionally say, "Hey! Do you remember that girl from the met lab called 'Ralph'?"