Nick Names

One thing we Australians share with the English is our love of Nick Names. These are abbreviations or alternatives to people's real names. It's a bit childish I know however we do it anyway. 

Nick names are mostly terms of endearment - sometimes not though. Some are obvious and others are a little more obscure. 

I am Hep. My surname is a long one and Hep is a simple abbreviation. I have also been called Heppo and Hepster and Hepenstein. I don't mind any of them. Call me anything you want. 

I don't give a fuck.

At work we have J-Bo who we also sometimes call Baz. Her first name is Joanna and her surname is Barron - so it is an obvious one. There is an Irish dude with a last name of Hession. Some call him the Sack. Martin Slater we call Slates and Simon Hamer is The Hammer. When we greet The Hammer we say “Ay Oop” for he is a Northerner - from Lancashire in the United Kingdom. “Ay Oop” is the Northerner way of saying hello. The Hammer will always say “Ay Oop” straight back. Ian Shenton is Shents but we also occasionally refer to him as the Briefcase Wanker. This is because he looks very similar to one of the characters out of the British comedy series “The Inbetweeners”. Shents doesn't mind us referring to him this way. He sees the humor and he laughs with us.

There is a German guy we refer to as The Belgian. I can't actually remember why but when it is mentioned, we all know who we are talking about. Simon Mercer is Mers and  Andrew Wigg is Wiggy. A very nice girl whose name is Zeina we refer to as Z. Pronounced Zee - not Zed. 

Like the Americans would say.

There is an old boy who used to work with us whose name is Brian Gillespie. Brian became Dizzy - or just Diz. We named him after the great jazz trumpeter. Like Shents he didn't seem to mind. Brian is quite a bit older than most of us and he made the mistake of telling us that he was once a folk musician. In his younger days. Back in the UK. This conjured up images of him playing "Scarborough Fair" on a lute. We teased him mercilessly but he took it well. There is an English guy who heads up our Security Department who we refer to as ‘Two Shots’. There is a story behind this name but it's a bit rude. 

So I won't elaborate.

There are a couple of people like Two Shots who we refer to in general discussions but not actually to their face. There is yet another English guy who doesn't live in Singapore but visits here often. He never takes off his jacket - no matter how hot it is. He is known as ‘cor-blimey-governor’. Another colleague how since departed was the Helmet Boy. He was a dick. An English guy who is not well liked is simply referred to as ‘The Fucker’. Enough said.

The real name of my old mate Berty is actually Mark. His surname is Reynolds - so Bert was obvious. Even his family called him Berty and they do to this day. I reacquainted myself with another old school mate recently by the name of  Mark Granter. When he was at school Mark was short and round and we called him Sacrifice. This was generally abbreviated to ‘Sac’. He reminded us of the little guy you would see in cartoons in a cooking pot who was being boiled alive by cannibals who had bones through their noses. The Sac is a big strapping man now but to this day all of his old mates still refer to him as Sac. 

He loves it. 

These names stick.