Nicknames!

When I was born, I was lucky enough to be named Holly. I really do like my name, and if it wasn't mine, I might even consider naming one of my unborn children that. But run through the alphabet and you'll soon realise 'Holly' rhymes with EVERYTHING. Bolly, Colly, Dolly... Yes, even Eolly. Thanks to my terrible information recall, I don't really remember anyone mocking me about this when I was growing up, although I'm sure they did. I would have.

My brother, Ethan (whose name doesn't rhyme with anything, by the way) made up a special ditty for me about my name. It went a little something like this: "Holly Bolly, fat and jolly". He loves me really. Ethan, funnily enough, still gets called Baby, Babe and Bubba by us... He's 18 this year.

A family friend calls Stacey 'Racy Stace' every time he talks to her. She loves that one.

Over the years I've had quite a few special nicknames though - Hollywood (kids at school), HollWoll (Mum), Leesh (derived from my middle name, Alecia - from Stace), and once I even got called Polly, but I think the lady who called me that actually thought my name was Polly. I think the last time anybody was called Polly, it was this girl:

And even her creators had the decency to tag another name on the end.

But my very very favourite nickname was given to me by Dad. Just wait, there's a lead-up to this one. One sunny summery day (probably), Daddy and I were having a chat (I'm sure) and he issued a statement to the room. Maybe something like "Today, Holly and I saw a purple spotted iguana" (or something similar). The room looked at him sceptically. "A purple spotted iguana?" (they would have said). Here it comes... "Yeah", said Dad. "Eh, Holl?.... Heh, heh... heh, heh, heh... Eh, Holl... A-Holl... A-hole!!!". (Get it???) Yip, that's definitely my favourite.

What were yours?

Next time: Pictures of our wee family...