What's In A Name?

My five-year-old son has a stunning capacity for asking deep questions, and at dinner the other night, he came up with a doozy.

"Dad," he said, "why does my sister have a nickname for a name?"

Backstory: his sister's name is Elizabeth, but nobody ever calls her that. We call her "Ellie," a name we settled on because her big brother made it so. See, when my wife became pregnant for the second time, we loved the name "Ella" for a girl, but Zachary (the Number One) couldn't wrap his three-year-old tongue around that word. He consistently referred to the unborn baby as "Ellie," so we went with it. When it came time to sign the birth certificate, we felt silly calling her just Ellie, so we made up a "formal" name that could be shortened to Ellie. Hence, Elizabeth. Now you try explaining all of that to a five-year-old while he's pounding a bowl of spaghetti.

Anyway, it got me thinking about nicknames. Many moons ago, when the sports media consisted of tobacco-addled newspaper writers wearing houndstooth hats in smoky bars, a nickname was a sure sign of sports greatness. Over so many scotch and waters, these ink-stained wretches hammered out splendid nicknames on their manual typewriters, forever enshrining our country's most sublime athletes in the pantheon of pop culture.

George Herman Ruth was not just "The Babe," he was also "The Sultan of Swat." Red Grange became "The Galloping Ghost." Ted Williams was "The Splendid Splinter," and occasionally "Teddy Ballgame." The Iron Horse, The Georgia Peach, The Manassas Mauler, the Gashouse Gang, and the Monsters of the Midway became part of our daily lexicon - okay, not ours, per se, but perhaps the lexicon of our grandparents.

In the current day and age, nicknames like these are few and far between. Sure, there are athletes who are better known by their handles - Larry Jones goes by "Chipper," and the last guy to call Magic Johnson "Earvin" was his college coach at Michigan State, Jud Heathcote (whose real name was George) - but in terms of lyrical, newspaper-columnist-style monikers, you have to do a little digging.

The NHL is a pretty good source for nicknames, if only because in the culture of hockey, with its small-town roots, every player in the league has been nicknamed something at one time or another. Take the player's first or last name, cut off a few letters, and add the "-ee" sound, and you've got a nickname. Hence, Stevie Y, Marty Brodeur, and Nikolai "Habby" Khabibulin. However, despite Nikolai's "Bulin Wall" handle, there aren't many old-school nicknames on the ice anymore. Once you get past The Great One - now a coach - and owner/player Super Mario, the pickings are slim. Sidney Crosby may indeed be The Next One, or just The Kid, but we're a long way from The Dominator, The Rocket, Mr. Hockey, and The Golden Jet.

On that note - have you ever noticed how every hockey franchise name, no matter how old or how young, seems to spawn another, shorter nickname? The Isles, Pens, Sens, Habs, Sabes, Leafs, and Caps in the East, along with the Wings, Preds, Hawks, Jackets, Avs, Ducks, and Yotes in the West. I'm telling you, hockey abbreviates everything.

Who's got the best nickname in baseball today? No more Charlie Hustle, Mr. October, or Donnie Baseball. We're left with the Big Unit, the Big Hurt, Big Papi, Godzilla, and the Mayor. The abbreviation trend, with A-Rod, K-Rod, D-Lee, and the like, does nothing for me. And Maurice Richard may have something to say about Roger Clemens' use of the nickname "Rocket."

It's worse in the NBA. Not too long ago, Shaquille O'Neal had a different nickname every week. From the Diesel to the Daddy, to Shaq-Fu to the Big Aristotle to the Real Deal (the name he favored among his friends in Orlando), O'Neal was a fountain of entertainment in print. Now, we get T-Mac, T-Lue, J-Will, K-Mart, and J-Kidd. Yawn.

There are some great newspaper handles out there in the Association. The Answer, the Glove, White Chocolate, the Truth (Paul Pierce), King James, Skip To My Lou (Rafer Alston), Starbury, Q-Dog, Stevie Franchise (sounds vaguely hockey, doesn't it?), the Matrix (best in the league), AK-47, and lots of "bigs" - the Big Fundamental (Duncan), the Big Ticket (Garnett), and the Big Cat (Jamaal Magloire), among others.

In the NFL, I love "The Human Joystick," Dante' Hall. The only person who calls Cadillac Williams by his given name of Carnell is probably his mom. Famous Amos Zereoue reminds me of cookies, which is always a plus. Football seems more inclined to nickname entire units - the Killer B's, the Purple People Eaters, the Hogs, the Steel Curtain, the Orange Crush, the Doomsday Defense, the Greatest Show on Turf. Not that individual football players don't have nicknames, just that the best ones seem to encompass bigger groups.

Here's my call for entries. Click on "reply" and send me your list of favorite individual sports nicknames from the present day. I'm looking for professional athletes, still active, with cool handles. The best submissions will appear in this space in a future blog. Help me out.