So, I finally got around to asking my maternal grandfather something I'd been vaguely wondering

[xiphias]

So, if you want to look up my grandfather in dental journals or whatever, his name is Dr Norman Becker. No middle name -- his family was too poor to afford one, or even an initial (Harry S Truman, of course, came from a family that could only afford the "S", but no name to go along with it).

The folks at his office call him "Dr Becker" if there's no chance of confusion, but usually call him "Dr Norman", in order to distinguish him from Dr David Becker, and Dr Todd Belf-Becker, his son and grandson respectively. (Is my grandfather a happy man? He loves dentistry, loves teaching about dentistry, and works with his son and grandson, whom he loves, and who also love dentistry.) Folks who he knows through the dental community call him "Norman" or "Norm".

But his family and close friends call him "Tuny." He's "Papa Tuny" to me, my sister, and all of our cousins. So, tonight, I asked Papa if he got his nickname after Gene Tunney, the heavyweight boxing champion from 1926-28 (and one of the greatest boxers of all time). He laughed and said that, no, he didn't, but he DID have the nickname when he was a small child not long after Tunney was the champ.

No, actually his nickname is because his name is Naphtali. As well as Norman. Like most Jews of his generation, really like most children-of-immigrants of his generation, he had a name, and an English version of the name, which he used in different contexts. So, his mother called him "Naphtali." Or "Naphtaleleh." Because, in Yiddish, to make a pet name, you add "eleh" to the end.

His childhood playmates had trouble with "Naphtaleleh", and came out with something closer to "Naphtaneleh", which morphed into "Taneleh", then "Taneh", then "Tuny". And that's what everybody's called him since his was in single digits.

But I don't think he really minds the connection to Gene Tunney . . . .

Comments

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

Nicknames are interesting. I should really look into some of my family's nicknames. Pretty soon, everyone who knows how Spike, Boozie, and Chigger came to aquire those names will be dead. Some people would think calling people over 80 by those names is odd...

My father is Ralph Jr, so naturally, they called him Zeke.

Did I mention my family is from the south?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

My foster sister's husband is Tony. "Tony" is, of course, short for "George".

See, his father is also named "George". Which is why he's called "Sonny." Sonny's father was named "George", which is why he was called "Junior". Naturally, Tony's great-grandfather was named "George".

For the record, Tony's son is named "Zandrew Xavier," and is called "Drew". He didn't want to stick his kid with "George". Although, frankly, if he had, we could have called him "George".

[sproutntad.livejournal.com]

You didn't know that about Papa? I had heard tho that Bubbe would call papa "Tunila" as a nickname and that's where Tuny came from. But I guess Papa would know better than I would :)

[sproutntad.livejournal.com]

Actually it was probably "Tuneleh"

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

This is good. I mean, onomastically. OK with you if I post it, or a link to it, on the elist of the Amer. Name Society?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Please do.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

A question came in:

You might ask your* grandfather if he was originally called Tuly which is the short form of Naftuli in Eastern European -Ashkenazic pronunciation from which Tuny was morphed.

*I corrected his misconception.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Naw: by the time he was old enough to not have an "eleh" on the end of his nickname, he was already "Tuny". He was Tuny by the time he was in elementary school. A good chunk of his friends didn't speak Yiddish. So he never hit a "Tuly" stage, because by the time that he'd have been "Tuly" instead of "Tuneleh", he was already "Tuny."

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

I always thought that Truman simply stole the 'S' that Ulysses Grant left behind (Old family joke, the 'S' was a mistake put on his records by the Congressman that got him into West Point who forgot that Ulysses was his middle name, and that his real first name was Hiram. The S was implied as 'Simpson' his mother's family name, but came to be referred to by many as 'Sam' aka 'Uncle Sam').

[jjblum.livejournal.com]

My mother's family is all about nicknames
My mother Charlene is Chuck
My aunt Merle is Bootsie
Aunt Nancy was Sissy
Aunt Ellen is Ungie
Aunt Kathy is Pixie
Uncle Tom is TR (OK not weird but I always called him Tar)
My Great Grampa Richard on my Father's side was Dumpy
There are stories behind all of them!