The Name Game

Last week, I had written this really long post about names, but I deleted it because I thought it was a little weird. I'm uber-fascinated with names and mine definitely has an interesting story. But The Pioneer Woman is giving away a Canon camera (don't go get it... I want it bad!), and instead of asking about cameras, she asked you to leave a comment with your nicknames. Before I tell you mine... I want you to know the brief story behind my name.

I'm named after my mother's father's sister Virginia, who was called Ginny. She really loved my mother, but sadly took her own life when my mom was 9. My parents both believed I was a boy until the day I was born. The plan was to name me Stephen Lee. (I have no idea where that comes from.) At birth, my mom decided on Jenny Leigh. When my father went to fill out the birth certificate, he changed it to Jennifer because he thought Jenny sounded trashy. Leigh is a derivation of Lee -- after my mother's grandfather, Marcus Lee Leverette. (And my mom didn't find out about the change until she was discharged.) My brother is named after two grandfathers -- John Marcus comes from John Bell Calhoun and Marcus Lee Leverette.

I've been called a lot of things in my life. Surprisingly, Jenny is not one of them. I tried to change what people called me twice and nobody bought it, so I'm stuck with Jenn or Jennifer.

But I've had some funny (albeit embrassing) nicknames along the way that I think are worth sharing:

My Mom calls me JennLeigh.
My Dad call me Sis.
Both call me Jennifer when they're mad.
John Mark has called me a lot of things. Some are not okay to mention on the blog, but mostly he uses Jenn, Buddy, Monkey or (rarely) Sis.
Most people call me Jenn.
Nobody calls me Jenny/Jenni.
One guy at work calls me JennaLeigh.
In elementary school, they called me Medusa Callahan.
In middle and high school, Hammer.
At junior college, Slicker.
At Lee, I was Hump Dump.
I've also been called Jennibug, from a boy I used to babysit who couldn't pronounce anything with F's. He would also make up new words or change them to accomodate his speech impediment.
Most kids under 5 call me JennFer. The "if" gets 'em everytime.
Miranda and Aubre call me Ho.
My cousin Amanda calls me Jenn-Jenn-bo-Benn. She's 38 and has never called me anything different. She also calls my brother John Mark Smurf, and wrote a song about it.
My grandmother calls me every name in our family but my own -- Rita, Shirley, Keli, Sandra.

What about you? Do you have any nicknames?