Daddy's Fish BowlA Clear View Of A Father's Family Experiences

I’m really big on nicknames for the kids; part of the naming process when we have children is to ensure that a ready made nickname is available.  This is partly because growing up, I never had a nickname.  I was always plain ol Keith! Keith, Keith, Keith, do you know how boring that is?  I desperately wanted to be called something else; I thought it would be so cool to write “keith” on my homework, but have people refer to me by some other name (no, jackass wouldn’t have worked).  But alas, that was not the case; I was Keith and only Keith, so I vowed that once I had kids, I would ensure that a nickname was built in somehow.  This is a vow that I’ve so far kept and one that is now coming back to haunt me.

Let’s start with Ty, or Tyrone as he currently goes by.  Getting Ty to learn his nickname was a breeze, it was simply a shorter version of his actual name so he picked up on it really quickly.  The two names sound the same so there wasn’t much confusion at all.  But recently, for some reason he has become infatuated with his “other name” (as he puts it).  He’s been asking questions like “Mommy, how can I be Ty if I’m really Tyrone” and we of course try to put it into perspective and explain that one is his real name and the other is his nickname, but he’s convinced himself that he has two first names, a middle, and last name.  He uses them interchangeably and sometimes tells us that he’s Ty-Tyrone and on other days he can be Tyrone-Ty.  The most recent shocker is that he has disowned his nickname all together.  One day he went to Fefe and told her that he didn’t want to be Ty anymore, he only wanted to be Tyrone.  He even went as far as not answering us if we called him Ty, he would reply with “I’m Tyrone, not Ty.”  I know that eventually it will pass, and it is quite funny at times, so we just let him be “whoever” he wants and don’t pay it too much attention.

One thing that I didn’t take into account when I took the nickname vow was what if the two names are completely different.  It’s something that I should have thought about, because now with Tre, we are falling into the issue of him not even recognizing his nickname at all.  Since he is a third, we figured Tre would be a good built in nickname, and once again the vow had been kept.  Only problem, “Tre” sounds nothing like “Keith”, so trying to introduce the nickname has presented some issues.  We know that he’s pretty young and we don’t expect him to understand the concept of a nickname yet, so we don’t push it on him.  But whenever we refer to him while talking to friends and family we call him Tre, so when they come over to visit, they automatically call him Tre also.  Well, Keith hasn’t formally been introduced to “Tre” yet, so he just ignores them.  Sometimes he’ll look around the room as if to say “where is this Tre person that everyone keeps talking about?” 

Maybe ensuring my kids have built in nicknames wasn’t the best idea.  As of now, the idea has earned more confusion points than cool points.  I think Ty is quickly coming out of his multiple name stage and will be fine settling in to the nickname.  But Tre will probably still need a few years before he is comfortable with it.  I sure hope those years go by quickly.  Mostly because when my Dad comes to visit and someone says the name “Keith” they automatically get three responses.

Any tips out there for introducing nicknames? What’s a good age?  What’s the best way to transition?