Alas, I have no Alias

Do I have a sobriquet, yet?

(Vlad the Impaler)

It was quite a nice little soiree this environmental group was having. They took over a huge dining room at a Santa Fe restaurant across from the State Capitol and hosted a gala event to raise money and educate voters about upcoming legislation. As we entered, there was a table with blank name tags, and we were supposed to write our name with a Sharpie and stick it on our clothing.

My wife and I were sipping our drinks when I saw someone from the organization heading our way to welcome us. He was squinting at our tags, and grinned as he reached out to shake hands.  

“Thank you so much for joining us, Barbara and, um, Durango…”

He then scooted off to greet someone else. As soon as his back was turned, Barbara’s head spun around like that little  girl in “The Exorcist,” to discover that my name tag did, indeed, say “Durango Basler” in my own handwriting. She pulled it off, taking part of my shirt and some chest hair along with it. She told me I was never, ever, ever to fill out my own name tag again.

In my defense, it had been just another pathetic attempt to give myself a nickname, something I have been trying to do, without success, for most of my life. I observed at an early age that cool, popular folks had nicknames, and I did not.

I, of all people, needed one, considering my long-festering name problems. At least four generations of my family, going all the way back to 19^th century Switzerland, have pronounced our surname ”BAHS-ler, as in “Bah! Humbug!” Then along comes our son, always eager to make life easier, and he changes his personal pronunciation to BAAZ-ler, as in “back.”

“Hello, I’m Bob BAHS-ler, and this is my son, Chris BAAZ-ler. Yes, we do pronounce our name two different ways. It’s a long story. Would you like to hear it? Oh, you have to leave so soon?”

And don’t even get me started on the branch of our family that says BAYS-ler! What losers!

Setting aside Basler, there’s also the whole Robert/Bob debacle. Bob isn’t a real name, it’s a diminutive, and a palindrome, at that. There are 242,329 people in this country named Bob. I know this is an accurate figure because I found it on the internet.

Let me graphically illustrate what that number means. You could expel every current resident of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and then bus in all the Bobs from all 50 states to replace them, and the city would be full again. You could then rename the place Bob Town if you wanted to keep tourists away.

The word "nickname" comes from the Middle English term "eke name." "Eke" means "addition." “An eke name," when run together in speech, sounds like "a neke name." I’m very sorry you had to learn something here. It won’t happen again.

If you are going to have a nickname it should enhance your image. You want to be Alexander the Great, or Peter the Great, or Honest Abe or something like that. My exhaustive historic research tells me one of the earliest examples of a nickname was Vlad the Impaler, the iron-fisted 15^th century ruler of what is now Romania. Impalement was his preferred method of dispatching his enemies.

I know, you’re going to argue that Vlad the Impaler wasn’t a great nickname. But considering that he also went by the name of Vlad Dracula – I am absolutely serious, you can look it up – he may have chosen wisely.

I didn’t think very much about nicknames in my youth. My father often called me “Dumbass,” and I didn’t think I wanted to become Dumbass Basler for life, so I let it slide.

Even cities get to have nicknames. When I was growing up in Indianapolis, people called it India-noplace, or Naptown. Granted, The Big Apple or The Big Easy would have been cooler, but what did we know?  

Some time ago, I learned there is a “nickname generator” on the internet, which you may use for free. You answer a few simple questions about yourself, and it spits out suggested nicknames. For instance, I tried it and was given:

Robert the Dandy

Robert the Alright

Robert the Dramatic

Robert the Exquisite

Robert the Crazy

Robert the Alright? Okay, so I guess rule number one is, if you let Artificial Intelligence give you a nickname, don’t expect to like it.  

For me, the real watershed moment came when I went to work as a journalist for the London-based news agency, Reuters, and found that British people all have nicknames. I was working alongside Nobby Clark, Digger Williams, Scooter Lovell, Buster Crabb. I just wanted some of that for my own self.

I waited until the time was right. In 1991 I found myself sharing a glass-walled office in Hong Kong with another editor, also an American, and I told her of my longing for a real nickname like the Brits and Australians had. They really love their nicknames, especially those Aussies. Aussie. I guess that’s a nickname, right there.

I began to offer up some new nicknames every morning when we got to our office. The journalists out in the newsroom all watched us intently through the glass and thought we were discussing a complex coverage plan for some major story in Karachi or Bangkok or someplace. That wasn’t exactly right.

“Okay, what am I supposed to call you today?” my colleague would ask me, rolling her eyes and idly sliding the Prince Charles bobblehead on my desk just a little closer to the edge, as she waited to reject whatever name I was selling.

One sultry Hong Kong morning I thought I had really nailed it.

“What do you think about Danger?” I asked. Janie spewed her coffee across the room, probably a hint that I should move on before she showed me what Danger really looked like. 

“What else have you got?”

“How about Sarge?”

“Were you ever a sergeant?”

“I was not.”

“Then, no.”

“Lefty?”

“No.”

“But I am a lefty.”

“I don’t give a crap.”

“How about Hacksaw?”

“Not a chance.”

“Wild Bill?”

“Are you kidding me? No!”

“Catfish?”

“No. And, eeewww!”

“The Impaler?”

“You know Vlad Dracula already took that one.”

“Shrimpy?” 

“Shrimpy? But you’re not little, Bob.”

“I like to eat shrimp.”

“God, no! What is wrong with you?”

“What about Buzzy?”

Bingo.

“That’s it! Buzzy! It’s YOU! Perfect! Ladies and gentlemen,  we have a winner! Meet Buzzy!”

I guess I should have been thinking about the names I was tossing out, and not just free-associating. But it was too late. Once the perfect nickname attaches itself with those little suction tentacles, there is no turning back.

That was three decades ago. Does everybody call me Buzzy, now? No, they do not. Does my old office partner? Yes. All these years later, Janie still calls me Buzzy. She doesn’t even remember when I used to be a Bob.

Big sigh. Maybe “Robert the Alright” would have been an alright nickname, after all.