Hey Jerky!

I've been rethinking my once concrete stance on being called Johnny. See, I haven't regularly been called Johnny since I was four years old. It's unbecoming and reeks of immaturity, and I knew it at the time. I was a five year old boy who wanted (and still desires, by the way) to be taken seriously, regardless of how many times I soil my bedclothes.

SAMPLE DIALOGUE: No, Father, Johnny would not like to watch the Smurfs. John wishes to watch the McNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. And let's have some silence now, please.

And then he would let me win at chess. Anyway, several years ago there was, I should admit, a brief lighthearted period (about two or three weeks) in an overall cavernously bad relationship where I was called Johnny. This, of course, was unacceptable because I couldn't take the usage seriously, not when the person calling me Johnny regularly spoke of slitting my thoat while I slept.

Ah, young love.

I'm not sure why I've recently turned a corner on Johnny usage. There are a handful of people at work who are called Johnny-- a bartender, a nightclub performer (my good friend John LaMere), even the famed Jim Long is often called "Jimmy" (Johnny's first cousin, of course) by folks at work.

There are famous Johnnys, of course. Drug addled actors, drug addled musicians... and, of course, there's Johnny Storm.

I'm lucky, in that way, that Johnny is a generally accepted and, ahem, cool derivation from my name. Other than people named Billy, Jimmy and Charlie, most people don't have it that easy.

UNACCEPTABLE SOCIAL DERIVATIONS WITH THE "Y" OR "IE" SUFFIX

Matty
Paulie (unless this is Philadelphia or northern New Jersey)
Marky
Richie
Margie (the root is also unacceptable)
Jackie
Jamie (sorry, that shit sucks)
Davy
Tommy (unless you're a member of the Mouseketeers and you still own your mouse-ears)
Georgie
Sammy
Huey
Dewey
Louie
Suey (I made that one up, but I'll bet it's out there)

What does that last suffix add? What does it change? Why is it human nature to infantilize (or, more like, first grade-icize) ourselves. It's a diminuative reduction of one's self, if you ask me.

That said, when you've got a name like John Smith, there's not much inflating of one's self ego that can be accomplished with simply a name.

My late Uncle Bobby was not a Robert. He was born Bobby Dwayne Smith in 1937. It says "Bobby" on both his birth and death certificate. My grandfather, the first John W. Smith, who I've never met, clearly hated names.