What's in a nickname?

Known as Sting even by his mum

By Oliver Brett BBC News

The Asian polo player Prince Charles calls Sooty has defended the prince against accusations of racism. But the big problem with most nicknames is that those who they apply to don't get to choose them.

"I have to say," said Kolin Dillon, responding to the allegation that he had become a target of a racist slur, "that you know you have arrived when you acquire a nickname."

Mr Dillon, who it emerged is widely known by the sobriquet Sooty by his polo-playing friends, among them the future British monarch, said he had never taken any offence from the name.

It was a "term of affection with no offence meant or felt," he said.

Prince Charles, aka Brian to Private Eye readers

The comment appears to have swiftly dampened the flames of what threatened to be another royalty racism inferno - coming just days after Prince Harry had used the word Paki.

But the clarification at least answers one question that applies to all nicknames - is it affectionate or abusive?

"No one really chooses their own nickname," says Robert Easton, author of The Good, the Bad and the Unready: The Remarkable Truth Behind History's Strangest Nicknames, "even royals."

The Roman Emperor Sigismund is one of a handful of exceptions. His self-conferred appellation The Light of the World "sort of stuck" says Mr Easton. It's certainly more deferential than that given to his predecessor of several hundred years, Justinian II, otherwise known as "the slit-nosed one".

Egyptian names like Baldy, Lazy, Nosy, and Big Head have been recorded. And the Roman Emperor born Gaius Julius Caesar would forever be known as Caligula ("Little Boot") on account of being brought up in a military camp and wearing miniature military footwear as a child.

Pop singer Madonna does not delight in the nickname Madge

Andrew Delahunty, the author of several books on the subject including the Oxford Dictionary of Nicknames, cites various reasons why the culture of nicknames thrives as much today as in the days of Caesar.

"Among work colleagues and close-knit teams, nicknames - even uncomplimentary ones - can help to cultivate a sense of belonging and camaraderie," he says. "Some are purely descriptive, drawing attention to some physical characteristic, others pick up on some personal quality or attribute or pay tribute to an achievement or an amusing incident."

Coining a nickname for a boss or a celebrity "closes the gap between them and us" and can be a "way of poking a little fun at them and cutting them down to size.

"And it's difficult to shed them once they've stuck."

With the Sooty story in mind, some cultures are less sensitive about drawing on a person's race or appearance as inspiration for a nickname, says Mr Delahunty. In South America, a white ex-patriot will invariably be known as "Gringo" - but it would not be considered a term of abuse - while a thin person is "Flaco".

Cricketer Mark Waugh was known as "Afghan" - the forgotten Waugh/War

While in some sports nicknames are a way of life. No member of the Australian cricket team is worth his salt until he has a pithy pet name - the captain Ricky Ponting, for example, is "Punter" due to his love of placing a bet.

Politics is no stranger to the spectacle, either. Think Hezza (Michael Heseltine) and Bambi (Tony Blair). In this context, nicknames have no greater friend than the newspaper headline writer, for whom brevity is all. Hence Iain Duncan-Smith's diminishment to simple old IDS.

Margaret Thatcher's standing was never harmed by her epithet The Iron Lady. But history, at least, shows that deeper motives are often play when it comes to flattering nicknames of those in power.

"John the Good [John II of France] was a horrible piece of work," says Mr Easton. "Either the name came from an historian because he wanted to stay in his good books or maybe he once did something good and that just stuck.

"Actually I think in this case it was the French being sarcastic - they love calling something something that it's not."

Conversely, William the Bad of 12th Century Sicily "was really good".

"He did lots of good things, like founding hospitals and being nice to his subjects. But the name was probably the handiwork of a historian who was trying to endear himself to William's successor," says Mr Easton.

It seems that both Madonna and Bruce Springsteen could empathise the more prosaically named William I of Sicily. Neither is enamoured with their nickname, says Mr Delahunty.

OTHER WELL-KNOWN NICKNAMES Music: "Fats" Domino, Elvis "The Pelvis" Presley Politics: George "Dubya" Bush, "Tipper" Gore (wife of Al) Children's author "Dr" Seuss Sport: Miguel "Singing" Indurain, Martin "Chariots" Offiah, Steve "Tugga" Waugh, Gilles "Bob" de Bilde, the "Thorpedo" (Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe)

"After Madonna married British film director Guy Ritchie, the British tabloid press started referring to her as Madge, jokily casting her as a suburban housewife," he says. "But it's been reported she doesn't like the nickname. In 2002 a front-page story in the Daily Star newspaper had the headline Don't Call Me Madge."

The defiantly blue-collar Springsteen, meanwhile, dislikes his moniker, The Boss.

"In the early days when he and the E-Street Band played gigs in small venues, it was Bruce's job to collect the money and pay the rest of the band," says Mr Delahunty. "This led them to start calling him The Boss, a nickname which has stuck."

"I hate bosses," Springsteen has complained since. "I hate being called the Boss."

Yet as any boss knows, when you contract out a job to someone else, you lose a crumb of control.

Witness Princess Diana's desire to be known as the Queen of Hearts. The name never really stuck and it's Tony Blair's posthumous christening of her as the People's Princess which has more traction with today's public.

So what of Prince Charles himself - a man who satirists and caricaturists haven't shied from drawing inspiration from?

"Private Eye always calls him Brian and Diana was Cheryl. But I think he will come to be knows as Charles the Green, for his environmental concern," says Mr Easton.

Of all these nicknamed individuals, some would never have been addressed as such to their face, and others only by a close circle of friends.

However, few can have embraced their nickname as readily as Sting. When addressed by a journalist as Gordon, he replied: "My children call me Sting, my mother calls me Sting. Who is this Gordon character?"