 | Stuff Lesbians Like Part 13: NicknamesBy Grace Chu |
Lesbians like inflicting stupid nicknames upon other lesbians. In The Outsiders some of the characters were known only by whimsical nicknames such as Pony Boy, Sodapop and Two-bit. But lesbians nicknames are less like the fanciful nicknames in The Outsiders and more like the names given to the Seven Dwarves. The sleepy dwarf is the sleepy one. Sneezy is the one who always sneezes. Likewise, the girl nicknamed “Shorty” will be short. The girl nicknamed “Tiny” will be tiny. The girl named “Jersey” will be from New Jersey. Clearly, lesbians are a creative bunch.
Sometimes, they are so creative that they won’t even bother thinking up a descriptive nickname and will simply refer to other lesbians by their last names. (Perhaps this practice arises out of playing team sports, where one’s last name is emblazoned on one’s uniform, and no one on the team bothers to learn their teammates’ first names. But since my idea of playing team sports is playing Wii, this is not my area of expertise, so I could be wrong.)
Lesbian nicknames are difficult to shake. Once you’ve been tagged with a nickname, expect to keep it for a very long time. Even after Jersey moves to Brooklyn, shacks up with wifey and adopts a family of cats, she will still be known as Jersey. Even if Tiny gains 200 pounds and takes up sumo wrestling, she will still be Tiny. Shorty is just screwed, because she’ll always be short, although it hardly matters, because even if she has a growth spurt at age 25, she’ll still be Shorty.
If a lesbian is new to the lesbian scene, she will be tagged with a name like “BabyDyke,” which will stick with her even after her sixth girlfriend, second request for a restraining order against girlfriend #3, and after she changes her cell phone number to avoid girlfriend #5′s mother who still calls her just to chat.
When a new lesbian arrives at college and comes out to a few select older students, members of the older crowd may take her under their wings and start calling her “The Adopted Freshman.” The Adopted Freshman will be The Adopted Freshman even after she graduates from college and goes to medical school. After the Adopted Freshman performs a triple bypass forty years later on one of the people who nicknamed her the Adopted Freshman, the patient will wake up from general anesthesia and slur… “Thankth, Adopted Frezzzhhman!”
As you can see, most lesbian nicknames are unimaginative. Even the initially interesting ones turn out to be merely descriptive after inquiring about the back story. And sometimes, you will wish you bit your tongue and never asked. Take, for example, a girl named “Crispy.”
[Scene: Five years ago in a bar in the West Village.]
“Is ‘Crispy’ her real name?” I asked her girlfriend.
“No.”
“Why is she named ‘Crispy’?”
“Because she tastes like corn chips.”
Trust me, I did not make this one up. (A side note: At this point it should be noted that even if your nickname started out as a private pet name given to you by your girlfriend, eventually your entourage will find out about it, and they may start calling you by that name.)
Woe is the lesbian who is nicknamed Sauerkraut, Limburger, Kimchi, or Gefilte. Come to think of it, I do know a lesbian who goes by the nickname “Gefilte,” and now I am thoroughly disturbed that I went down this route, and I want the last two minutes of my life back.
Because of the permanent nature of lesbian nicknames, you can stay friends with a lesbian for years without knowing her real name. One day you may receive an invitation to the commitment ceremony of Millicent and Olivia. You will have no idea who the hell Millicent and Olivia are. And then you show up and discover that Crispy and Shorty are getting married; BabyDyke, Tiny, and The Adopted Freshman are in the wedding party; and Jersey is on the turntables giving nasty looks to hecklers, who are telling her to play Bon Jovi.
Lesbians are both embarrassed and proud of their nicknames. If you come across a lesbian who introduces herself or is introduced by a name that you know wasn’t on her birth certificate, play along and pretend that it is her real name, even if you know the unappetizing back story. Or you can pretend that she is the lost child of Frank Zappa.
[Readers! As Yip suggested below, please divulge in the comments the "most ridunkulous" lesbian nickname you have come across. If you are reading via an RSS reader and think you're off the hook, I know you get a link to the comments, because I added the feature, so you have no excuse. Don't be shy. Participate!]
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March 25th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Lezzies are SOOO boring with nicknames. For those of us who have played sports, the last name is always the default. Then we have other unimaginative ones… say, you run like a squirrel, guess what, you’re “Squirrel.” Or hey! you’re fast? We’re gonna call you “Speedy.”
Although, one of my teammates was a doppelganger for Kimmy Gibbler from Full House, so that was super fun to scream out on the field.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:47 am
DAMMIT! I knew I forgot something. Last night, Rosen told me to add the thing about the last name. I even scribbled it down on a piece of paper. All right… I will add it as soon as I get some work done.
[Update: Done.]
March 25th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Wait.. “run like a Squirrel”? How does one run like a squirrel?
March 25th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Hoppity hop hoppity hop hoppity hop hop hop hop with a lot of quick pivoting, dodging and ability to hide the ball in the cheeks of her mouth.
i’m kidding about the ball in mouth thing. i think.
p.s. I’d like to hear the most ridunkulous nicknames from our readers!!!
March 25th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Bah. Not all lesbian nicknames are that craptacular. I’ve given my friends such monikers as:
Patti O’Furniture (yeah, the Irish one)
Janet Talia (say it quick)
Trailmix (the outdoor-sy one)
Pennsylvania Sue
Non-labeled Companion (the one who doesn’t like to “label” relationships)
Non-stick Pam
Slim Straighty (my straight roommate in college)
And some nicknames that only get used when the recipient is out of earshot:
Ass Trumpet (ok, he’s just a guy in my office that farts, but still a good nickname)
Paperweight (another co-worker who does nothing all day)
Seabiscuit (dude, she really looks like a horse – more than Sarah Jessica Parker ever dreamed of)
I also refer to the Republican nominee and his entourage as the McCain Clown Posse, so surely you can overlook the fact that my friend of miniscule stature is known as Junior.
Word to your mothers,
The Notorious H.A.M.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
My friend’s nickname is “Crotch”. She’s got a ‘fro on her head that’s is basically untamed pubic hair.
March 25th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
okay i have been enjoying things lesbians like so i guess it’s about time i comment.
as soon as i read this my mind automatically went to all of my “entourage” and the goofy ass nicknames we all have. despite the fact that a lot of them go by their last names there are a few odd ones.
for instance my bff chip, who by the way goes only by the name chip (real name teresa although not many people know that), got her name because someone at some point thought the way she was acting looked like a chipmunk. yeah, rediculous.
my friend michelle who we all call bif. bif being a shortened version of a made up word biffers. i’m sure this one happened to come around on some drunken night that nobody quite remembers.
we have a friend who goes by wid. i think that one followed her from childhood.
and then there is me. known to most as face. my nickname started out as staceface and then i guess at some point a clever lesbian shortened it down to face. and so now when i’m introduced to people their minds almost always go directly to the gutter and leaves them trying to figure out in their minds just why exactly all these lesbians call me face.
March 26th, 2008 at 6:42 am
Tiny Loved This One!
March 26th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
The Notorious H.A.M. is an example we should all follow.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Excellent! The Notorious H.A.M. offers compelling evidence to support the above article.
March 28th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
The only person who has a nickname in our pays de lesbo is known as Barbiepot, pot being the Dutch word for dyke. Because she was the only femme for the longest time in the lesbian bars of the city where I live. Things have since changed, of course, but she still goes by her moniker.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Compelling evidence?!
Tommy is a lawyer. Shouldn’t you be working?!
Tommy’s new nickname is atty.
If you need to know what that is, well, ask Tommy.
April 4th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Hmm. I don’t know which is worse — names that I have to try not to laugh at, or unavoidably hyperbutch women going by names like “Tiffany Sue.” That said, my fave lesbian nicknames:
Peaches — she had apple cheeks, but somehow they became peaches.
Spike — no idea where that one came from.
Rebel — she was not from the South; I feared to ask more.
Bone — known for stopping the car to collect road kill to make sculptures and jewelry from the bones.
April 4th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
From my sports team:
Baster has finally got her girlfriend pregnant
April 14th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
ugh. down here, lesbians tend to go by initials. especially butch ones. Anyone named Jasmine, Jessica or Jennifer will inevitably go by ‘Jay’ or ‘J’ and the last name initial, like ‘J Tuck’.
Actually we like to shorten the last names..i know two Tuckers, one is ‘J Tuck’ and one is just ‘Tucker’ or ‘Tuck’.
there’s also ‘Big Roz’, who’s since lost almost 100 lbs and ‘Uncle Jen’, because she has a cool house and throws parties like the cool uncle.
June 1st, 2008 at 8:23 pm
two nicknames have stuck for my bugsey. . . don’t remember why I got it and Granddaddy cuz I’d been out since before they were born.
November 15th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
My nickname in my entourage is Canada (because, well… I’m from Canada).
January 7th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Being one of those lucky short people I have a bunch of nicknames created by my friend Gill that never stuck,
Midget Gem
Tiny tears
Baby Gap
Half pint (i work in a bar)
Short stack etc
Other than that there was the day we were havin lunch with our friend who was using disgusting pet names for her boyfriend so we decided we should have pet names for each other and thus Pumpkin and Babycakes was born!
My personal favourite nickname (or lack there of as you’ll see when you read) was this:
Scene: hanging out with my friend:
My friend: do you know what, your new name is…? (Long pause)
Me: What?
My friend:…I was tryin to come up with something that meant lesbian and rhymed with emma but all I came up with was Emma the lesbian
Me: Creative!
January 9th, 2009 at 12:35 am
My friends and I are usually pretty good at nicknames… sort of…
I am nachos, because i had a hissy fit in a bar once because they listed nachos twice on their menu. I am also The George, which i guess is an obvious one being my name and all, but because I gave myself the name as an ironic self deprecating joke, it held.
I have a friend that goes by pickle (vaguely rhymes with her last name, kind of) but to me she will always be either ballsac or loveswan (1st being an incident in high school with the science lab gas taps, second one being our mutual hate of lovey pet names – naturally we then gave each other the worst one we could think of)
another friend is Lieutenant lobo, or simply lobo. no idea where it came from. She is also called day-walker (irony on the fact that shes pasty and has red hair, ie cant go in the sun).
last but not least my good friend, night-rider. She has an unbelievable rack when wearing her Hoff tshirt.
the end.
February 9th, 2009 at 2:28 am
The nicknames in our group aren’t really that creative:
My name is Lucy, so I get Louie, and Lulu, and Lou Boo.
I also get Jebus because I had a massive argument with one of these guys I know over whether or not Jesus was black. It really stuck.
My other name is PB, because my bestie said we go together like Peanut Butter and Jelly.
One girl is called Crunchie, because she’s blonde on the inside, brunette on the outside. She also gets bug-eye because she has MASSIVE eyes, and cat lady, because her hair looks like this hobo woman that has like a thousand cats.
One gets Hulkfist, because when she gets angry she goes pyscho like the Hulk. She also gets Stoner, cause her last name is Stone, and Goldilocks, because she ahs the most perfect beautiful blonde curls.
One gets Ferret, because she has bucky teeth. She also gets hobo because one time when we all went out shopping her heels hurt so much she sat in the gutter and refused to get up.
One gets Goldie, because she has a three-second memory. She also gets Ganessh, because well… I honestly don’t know. Something to do with me being Jebus, and she wanted to be powerful too.
April 8th, 2009 at 2:31 am
My high school has an LGBT pop that can be counted on one hand, but this tradition still holds true:
I’ve got ‘Butchster’ and (inexplicably) ‘Toots’ for being the least femme of the group, another has ‘Babydyke’ for wearing pastel-coloured polos and being the youngest one/fresh out. ‘Tits’ is pretty self-explanatory… and a few others have managed to avoid such unfortunate monikers.
April 25th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
my wife is “Sr” being the older of the “jen’s” in our group. the younger is, obviously, junior. there’s Grimmer, who’s last name is Grimm. Jakie, aka Action Jackson; Rita, aka Ritz or Randy; Little Leah; “Angela’s Leah” (despite the fact that she and Angela had a HORRIBLE relationship and are no longer together!), Beaner (who farts). And there’s a girl who I like to call Julie Rotten b/c her last name starts with something that sounds like rotten, and, well, she is.
I don’t have a nickname . . . that I’m aware of . . . what does that mean?! (Should I overanalyze this??)
July 22nd, 2009 at 11:51 am
so when i saw the seven dwarves .. i freaked .. they call me dopey .. legally changed my name to Sidero
hm
i call my bestfriend left butt cheek or LBC for short nd beastie
August 12th, 2009 at 8:52 am
so i was reading this and i really liked it but then it got me to thinking and i dont really hang out with gay people even tho i am one of the biggest gay people you will meet so i dont really have a nickname and that made me kinda sad.
September 26th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
i am called tofu scram. yes. because i don’t eat eggs when we go out for breakfast.
September 26th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
I usually go by my last name in the dyke crowd, but I’m also known as Banner because I’ve got stars tattooed on my chest
I’m still Papa sometimes because my ex was Mama to our friends, but I also have a dopey name that’s followed me since 7th grade
most of my friends don’t have nicknames, aside from Punkzilla and Wingman, that is…
September 26th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Those dreaded nicknames. lol I’m constantly being called ‘cheese’ by my other gay friends because my name is Brie *shakes head and sighs*
January 8th, 2010 at 11:13 am
Nette Seite! Dein Beitrag ist interessant. Danke dafuer.
May 11th, 2010 at 1:50 am
Oh my god. I knew someone nicknamed Crispy. And that story was the exact reason too…we either know the same lesbian or that is…..somehow a common lesbian nickname haha
May 13th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
I need a nickname for an impersonation and musical contest at a gay bar for tomorrow, help??? I’ll probably be the only “real woman” and the rest drag or gay men. What are some funny lesbian names
June 18th, 2010 at 2:26 pm
I’ve got a few:
Tiny because, well, I am.
Lil’ White Shawty in the Suburbs for when I hang out with my black lesbian friends in the city.
Jaybird to a lesbian friend on the ‘net derived from my online pseudonym.
June 22nd, 2010 at 5:28 pm
[...] the ever-squabbling Crispy and BabyDyke: “Y’all aren’t even dating. You can at least sleep with each other to justify all [...]
June 24th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
[...] one. I love my mum, but I would have preferred to go with my one gay friend, the imaginatively nick-named Weenybop, but she is going to a festival that weekend (3rd July), so no can do. No worries, I told [...]
June 24th, 2010 at 9:58 pm
Ooohhhh, I lose at this game. In a super-dyke moment, most of my lesbian friends and acquaintances are from when I worked at a summer camp known for its girl-lovin’ (I call it Camp X Lesbian Training Camp and Recruitment Center, which should have gotten me in hella trouble), where we had camp names. Ahem, but when I started dating my boss from that camp, I insisted we switch to real names before we slept together. Nicknames only go so far… and not beyond the bedroom door for me!
July 6th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
my names jenna, so i always get va-jenna.
July 10th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Straight-bar-loving-marge.
le siiiiiigh.
worst nickname ever….thanks friends lol.