52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2025
Week 3 - Nickname
Dad really did not want any of his children to have a
nickname. Accordingly, we were given
safe mid-20th century names that either couldn’t be tampered with
(Jill, John) or had inoffensive diminutives (Jenny, Libby, Margie, Mike).
This was despite his own name being a nickname. Christened Norman John he does not appear to
have ever answered to that name. When he
was still a baby, one of his grandfathers called him “Bill” and he was Bill
ever after. Most people didn’t even know
his “real” name.
I think this antipathy stemmed from the nicknames in his mother’s
family which seem to have been bestowed in childhood and stuck – even when they
became slightly silly and then, in old age, ridiculous.
The first boy born to his mother’s parents came after four girls
and was named Charles after both his grandfathers. He was known as Boy all his life, Uncle Boy
to my father.
There were seven children in this family and two others had
baby nicknames that lasted. The third
girl was Eliza – always called Weenie or Ween.
I didn’t know her proper name until I began doing the family
history. The baby of the family was
Mabel, known as Sis. In an article in
the Northern Star newspaper, she is described as “Mrs Sis Day”.
The eldest of that family was Nellie (Ellen). When talking about his abhorrence of
nicknames, Dad always used this example – her daughter Florence Alice was dubbed
“Bub” as a baby and still called Bub when she died at 87. Her wedding announcement in The Land on
29 Dec 1939 read:
“Murwillumbah: Bub, daughter of Mr. and Mrs Vic
Lehmann, of, Lismore, and Charlie, only son of Mrs. McLean, of Coraki.:”
Bub was a talented florist and is mentioned in quite a few
stories in the Northern Star, either as Bub or Alice.
