Nicknames for Our Children

Some things seem so trivial yet they are or were a part of our past which we might forget and probably just as well so. Yet trivia is cultivated frequently for whatever reason a person might indulge in it. Certainly so with pet or nicknames for our children. I suppose it is indicative of the "pet" nature of our relationships with those little ones. In our case, none of the names persisted into adulthood and phased out somewhere in childhood or early youth. It is impossible to remember 40+ years later which were important or endured long, so I will just begin with the oldest and go down the line. (Actually, I still mutter the first two nicknames in the privacy of our home at times!)

Paul, I called Saulos, which is the German and Greek name for Paul. Or Saulos Natan, again fully the German translation. It had no special significance, but just reflected the languages I knew and reflected a playful variety of what we had officially named him. Natan is also Hebrew for gift. Possibly Saulos is something like 'little' in one of those languages

Conrad, I called Kunraut, which was also the German form, at least so I thought. There was of course a Conrad Grebel, an early Anabaptist leader that I admired, from whom preference was originally derived. Probably Grebel was also German.

Grace, that is a longer story. Apparently one time Loretta was reading the story of Jack and the Beanstalk that greatly interested Grace. In enthusiasm for the story, she said "Beanstalk" excitedly. So that became her pet name. But she had another name as well, Bumper Crop. Whether this reflected her plump build at birth and childhood, or the fact that she followed so closely after Conrad I don't know. Certainly we could not always just call this vibrant young child by such a calm name as Grace.

Rachel, Why I called her Beanert is beyond me. She was also one of our precious children who could not have only one beautiful name, but had to have a play name for all the times I enjoyed so much to play her with me while I was going to college and reserved my evenings for my children..

Then there was Julie, who was named after the rising star, Julie Andrews who I was enamored with in the days of The Sound Of Music. But J. Andrews had also starred in My Fair Lady and sang, "wouldn't it be loverly". Did loverly metamorphose into Aberly? or just Aber.  I don't know, but that is what I called our Julie.  Julie Aber. And I could repeat that variation to the closing lines of Anderew's song, where I sang the name 4 times: Aberly, Aberly,Aberly, Aberly.

I don't remember If only I used these names but it seems primarily I did; Loretta remembers calling Rachel, "Rachel Baby". I hardly know if the children used the same names I did, but I know there were one or two names for each other, but about pet names, I suppose that was primarily my thing. Those kids were just a lot more to me than their legal names, however much we liked them.