dar334

I come from a family of nicknamers.  I nickname.  There have been a few people that have voiced their opinion on my nicknames.  “If you were going to call her Lucy you should have named her Lucy!”  “You don’t need to give her a nickname, she has a name!”  I gave those people nicknames too …………………

Webster defines nickname as “a usually descriptive name given instead of or in addition to the one belonging to a person, place, or thing”.  It is not to be confused with a shortened version of someone’s name as in Jim for James.

Some nicknames can be degrading, some show love, some nicknames have no obvious reason, some just pop in your head. Some can be so hurtful.  Some, although degrading, become acceptable to all involved. Take for example Pigpen, that lovably dirty little boy in Charlie Brown’s circle of friends. Sometimes nicknames stick, sometimes they don’t. One thing is for sure, no matter what the nickname, if said in love, is acceptable in my book.

In my immediate family, my parents both had a nickname, both given out of love.  My Dad was Eugene, aka Junior.  My Mom was Ethel, aka Dolly.  My Dad had a brother Darrell, aka Mickey (after the mouse), and a brother named Darwin, aka Buck (which was shortened from Buckshot).  My Mom was the only “nicknamed” in her family.  In my husband’s family, there was a Walter, aka June, a Clarence, aka Pork (which didn’t fit his body style at all).  I was Lucy and Sister, both given to me by my Dad.

My husband and I carried on the tradition by nicknaming our children.  Tonya is aka Lucy, Suzie, Sissy just to name a few.  And when I’m mad, she’s Lucille! or Suzette!  She answers to them all.  Our son is Ryan, aka Charlie Brown or Buddy.  When I was mad, he was Charles!  or most often Ryan James!  Our grandchildren are Boo (shortened from Boo boo, yes, Yogi’s little companion), Button, (not sharing how that one came about), Butter Cup, Turtle Dove and Caterpillar (Turtle Dove and Caterpillar are the same person, Grammy and Papa each have their own nickname for her).

While listening to my favorite podcast yesterday, I took a left turn and ended up on this ponder.  The Pastor’s topic was from Luke 6:12-16, the choosing of the Twelve Apostles.  In case you’ve never noticed, no one in the Instruction Book has a last name.  They are either “the son of”, “the daughter of”, just plain “of” which is generally followed by the name of their hometown, and sometimes even by their actions as in “Zealot” or “Traitor”.  The Twelve Apostles Jesus chose were Simon (aka Peter) and his brother Andrew.  James and his brother John, Philip and Bartholomew (aka Nathaniel), Matthew (aka Levi), Thomas (aka Didymus or the twin), James (son of Alphaeus), James (the Lesser), Simon (the Zealot), Judas (son of James, aka Thadeus) and Judas (Iscariot).   Now the ones that caused me to grab a pencil and jot down their significance was “The Zealot”.  A Zealot is defined as “a person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other ideals.”  Pastor Mike called Simon the Zealot a terrorist.  The word “Iscariot” is a defined as “a traitor”, no need to go further.

One of my many Biblical confusions was the renaming God did, all…..the…..time….  Some were quite simple, as in Abraham for Abram, Sarah for Sarai, even Paul for Saul (of Tarsus).  But the one that still throws me for a loop to this day is Israel, for Jacob.  The kicker on this one is Israel is a place.  It’s a country.  It’s God’s country.  The Promised Land.  It’s on the map.  But ……. now this is the kicker …… God did not rename Jacob after the country, he renamed some areas of land after Jacob, after he renamed him Israel.  I think that anyways ….. pause …. Yes, Israel (the country) was name after the man, Jacob, aka Israel.  God gave Jacob this name after wrestling with him, Israel means “May God prevail”, God won that wrestling match, God always wins, after all he is God.

In some instances, “Israel” is used as the man, sometimes as the country, sometimes both are used in the same verse!  And sometimes the country and the man are both called Israel in the same verse.  The only thing I can be certain of is that most of the time I have no idea which Israel they’re talking about.  I think that was God’s plan to make us have to reread, reread even slower, then ask questions or dig in further.  We can show God our love by rereading and digger in further.  That’s just my opinion.

Feel free to comment with your nickname.

dar, daughter of Junior 🙂