Mean nicknames in my family, volume I

Let me start this off by saying there were seven of us growing up. Right there we earned the collective titles of the Von Trapps (it didn't help that we were pretty musical, either, though we're more Irish than Austrian) and The Waltons. And when you have a family of seven children, it will be (much to mom and dad's chagrin) rife with code-talking. Mix in one set of fraternal twins and one set of identical triplets and you could easily put a Navajo Code Talker to shame. 

OMG they killed Kenny! You bastards!

Over the years, a whole volume of nicknames was created for and by each of us and other people we met (sometimes so we could talk about them without their ever being the wiser). 

Anyway, first time AF paid my younger sister a visit, she received the sobriquet the spotting owl. It morphed into TSO around my friends as code for "the rug rat approacheth". That lasted until our mom found out. 

Mairzy Doats was another one (for Marion), which she hated, too. We eventually settled on "Mare" for her. She still is skinny as a rail which is probably why it never bothered her. My twin still occasionally addresses her as Ruthless (her middle name's Ruth if you didn't catch the hint - he's a clever one).

Looks just like him (minus the old)

My twin Matthew somehow earned the nickname Orville Redenbacher in summer camp one year when he was 12. His mistake was to come home and tell us. ;)

Matthew was probably chosen by my mom because "Matty" and "Maddy" sounded cute until the first time she had to yell at one of us at the other end of the house. "No, she was calling you." "No way, she's after you!" Most of my childhood this wasn't a problem for my dad who called me Jellybean, though. So outside of other nicknames like Pooper-Scooper (when Mare was still in diapers, Matt mistook something that had fallen out for chocolate) Door-Matt usually just went by his middle name, which unfortunately wasn't anything fun like Ambrosia. Although, Bro would've been a great nickname. 

Lately, my brother and I teamed up to give Mare a new name, thanks to her striking resemblance to Kimbra (or what Kimbra might look like in her 30s). Ironically, Matty's the professional musician of the family; Mare does PR. 

Run this through the Drinking Mirror app on your iPhone

The triplets enjoyed monikers collectively and individually. The collective was one that really stuck. Trekkies will recognize this as a reference to The Borg from the '90s TV series. 

The Borg: way better option for sibs than Björk

Before then, they were Huey, Dewey, and Louie and it didn't matter which one you called Huey, Dewey or Louie. 

Quack factor: Tommy managed to become a doctor

Trips was a more generic one - more of an appellation than a cognomen. Individually, Thomas was Tom & Jerry, Michael was Michelle, and though Robert didn't like being called Robby, he eventually was stuck with Bob Roberts. Be careful what you wish for.  

Robby's a software engineer and hates politics, so it was PEFECT

You're probably wondering why so many Ms in our family.Though we were named after relatives, it probably didn't hurt that our parents met at Michigan State. 

THIS IS SPARTA!!!

Being the oldest in our family didn't win Analeise aka Elise aka Liz any special considerations, though as the first-born, her nom de guerre is admittedly pretty vanilla.  

My brother-in-law followed the label

As far as anything that stuck, the craziest it ever got for her was Liesl after the oldest of Sound of Music's Von Trapp children. Liesl conveniently rhymes with "legal", which turned out to be pretty prophetic for the first lawyer in the family.

Messrs. Michael and Matthew are not amused

Un/fortunately for the boys, the boy-girl ratio in our family didn't fully match the Von Trapps. One of the Trapp trips would have to be Louisa, my twin brother would be stuck as Marta, neither of which would do for friendlier nicknames. Besides, Louisa was already Michelle! (In case you think Mikey was in any way damaged by this, he's now a happily-married dad of four/Army colonel serving in Afghanistan.) But Liesl, Brigitta, and Gretl were thrown around collectively for us gals a little. To Elise, Matt and I were "Sparky and the Spazz"(Matt was the Spazz, I was Sparky).

There are more nicknames so there could be a Volume Two at some future point but I suppose this is enough over-sharing for the time being. If you think any of my wonderful siblings would be miffed upon reading this, nah.