A Rose by Any Other Name

“No one over the age of 25 who doesn’t take her clothes off for a living should be calling herself “The Kitten.””
--Mike (the author’s personal friend)

When I was about eight years old, or maybe younger, I decided I wanted a nickname. I didn’t particularly like my own plain name, and I was resentful that my parents hadn’t named me something more pretty and exciting, like “Madeline” or “Brittany.” I sometimes fantasized that my life as I knew it, as plain old “Marcy” living in the suburbs, was just a dream that I would soon wake from. In my real waking life, I must surely be a pretty girl with long, shiny, black hair, with different parents, living in a different place. I must surely be named Madeline or Brittany. Surprisingly, I never did wake up, and to this day, I wonder how my life would have turned out if I had been named Brittany or Madeline. Would I be thinner and richer? Would I get invited to more parties?

So there I was, a kid stuck with a decidedly un-cool name. With no other options, I decided that the next best thing to a cool name was a cool nickname. In fact, a cool nickname might even be better than a cool real name, I thought. The thing about nicknames, or so it seemed to me, was that they conveyed a jovial familiarity, an affection bred from something that the nicknamed person did and/or said. It seemed like a nickname was a badge of honor in a way – a mark of popularity. And so I wanted one. Even if I had to give one to myself.

The first nickname I tried to give myself was “Marcy Mouse” or just “Mouse.” Looking back, it is clear to me that a nickname like “Mouse” was just as unlikely to steer me into a life of popularity and excitement as my real name was, but I was collecting mice at the time. Not live mice mind you, but mouse things: mouse candles, mouse stuffed animals, mouse figurines, mouse pencil tops, and mouse earrings.

My grandmother was a collector. Her home was resplendent with her various collections, all displayed behind glass or in organized clusters on end tables. She collected birds and sea shells and pigs and rose glass and angels. I was fascinated by her dedication to these figurines, her care in their display, her maintenance of the collections. Of course, no one ever nicknamed my grandmother “Sea Shell” or “Pig” based on her collections, but that was lost on me back then. It seemed fitting that I should be called Mouse. I was surrounded by mice! I loved mice! Looking back, it is clear to me that collecting mice is really lame. If it was excitement and popularity I was looking for, I should have concentrated on building a sweet record collection, or all of the Teen Beat issues that featured River Phoenix or Scott Baio or something. Anyway, “Mouse” as a nickname never stuck. Which is probably a good thing.

When Mouse didn’t work out, I concentrated on variations of my real name. I figured that there must be a livelier version of my real name, and in the second grade, I was determined to introduce my fellow students to a livelier version of myself too. I announced to Ms. Nell, my second grade teacher, that she and all of the students could call me “Marcella” from now on. Marcella had a delightful ring to it – almost regal, like an exotic foreign princess. Ms. Nell readily agreed as I recall, but what I don’t recall is anybody ever actually calling me Marcella in the second grade. I do remember carefully writing the name in the top corner of my school papers, trying to perfect the curl on the M so that it looked exotic and princess-like.

Although I am now way past the second grade, Marcella is not a name I have completely forgotten. After I graduated from law school, I thought that “Marcella McDermott, Esq.” had a titillating ring to it. A regal, exotic, foreign-princess-like lawyer! A good friend agreed, and she continues to call me that from time to time. Of course, when she does call me “Marcella” I think she has me mixed up with someone else and wonder if she is losing her marbles.

“A nickname is sometimes considered desirable, symbolizing [sic] a form of acceptance, but can often be a form of ridicule.”

--seen on Wickopedia, the clear authority on many things

As I continued to search for the perfect nickname, there were occasions when I myself didn’t come up with the name that was bestowed on me. Yes, there were times when some idiot came up with his own hilarious name for me and it caught on. Like in the 4th grade. What I remember of my own personal 4th grade nightmare is that it all started on a typical day. Typical except that we had a substitute teacher. Naturally, my peers and I were all a little rowdy and restless on that day, eager to get away with something because we had a sub and we could.

I had known red-haired, freckled Ryan Kelly forever. He had known me forever. He definitely knew that my name was not Chauncey. However, on this nearly-typical 4th grade day, for some inexplicable reason, he began addressing me as Chauncey. And once he started, everyone in the class started calling me Chauncey too. Nothing I said or did could deflect the Chauncey chant. And the unthinkable happened. During a reading exercise, the substitute teacher swiveled her bespectacled head in my direction, looked straight at me and said “Chauncey, will you please read the first paragraph out loud?” The horror. And the collective mirth. Oh yes classmates, that was indeed hilarious. Luckily, our real teacher, who knew my name was not Chauncey, returned in a matter of days and Chauncey failed to stick. Also a good thing.

Years passed without a nickname. My dad remarried and my new step-brother and step-sister each had adorable nicknames. My dad even had an adorable nickname. By some miracle, I somehow survived high school without earning a nickname despite the nickname-worthy facts that I gained 40 pounds, drove around a hot pink Monte Carlo, and was a member of the astronomy club.

But in college, I got a nickname that made up for the high school absence. In college, my friends called me “Super Dud.” I don’t remember how it started, but if “Super Dud” doesn’t evoke an image of a short, round, four-eyed freak roaming the campus with a cape flying behind her, I don’t know what does. And it wasn’t even true! I was cool! Sort of. What I mean is that I had a lot of friends. Of course, some of those friends were the ones who nick-named me “Super Dud.” Having a nickname, I quickly realized, wasn’t all I had cracked it up to be. Super Dud? It proved that I was accepted and loved, but by whom? A pack of equally nerdy and dud-like cohorts?

True, I was popular in college, but not in the way I had once envisioned. It wasn’t the popularity of golden-haired sorority sisters or collegiate athletes that I enjoyed, but rather the popularity that comes along with being the class-clown, the outrageous and funny chubby girl who can talk to the hottest guy on campus because she knows she doesn’t stand a chance and therefore doesn’t even get nervous. Professors loved me. Students of all types loved me. I was Super Dud!!

The Super Dud moniker didn’t last past college, which was a wonderful thing. After graduation, I was determined to change the Super Dud image. I shed some of the weight and even learned to flirt with guys without also pathetically trying to set them up with my hotter friends. I went to parties and had an interesting, eclectic group of friends. I hung out in coffee shops and talked about poetry. I earned an academic, if not experiential, knowledge of human sexuality (always a crowd pleasing conversation topic). And when I was about 29 (yes, almost 30), I decided that the appropriate nickname at this juncture of my exciting and adventurous life was “The Kitten.” That’s “The Kitten.” Not to be confused with just” Kitten.” To me, the “The” before “Kitten” added a unique and sophisticated flair that was imperative to the success of the name. I would be the only one, the only Kitten, hence “The Kitten.”

Don’t ask me what possessed me to think that “The Kitten” would be an appropriate nickname in any regard. I didn’t have a kitten, I didn’t look like a kitten, my name didn’t derive from Katherine or Kit or anything remotely similar, and I wasn’t a stripper. I thought it was sassy though, and I like the way it looked when I slipped it into my full name:

“Marcy-The Kitten-McDermott.”

Getting this name to stick was crazy hard, however. Most people didn’t take it seriously. I really can’t imagine why. And the “the” proved to be a stumbling block for most people. “So, you don’t want me to say ‘Hey, Kitten, how are you, but ‘Hey The Kitten, how are you?’” my friends would ask in confusion. “Yes!” I would exclaim, “that’s it exactly!” Note: if you have to explain to people how to say your nickname and how to use it in a sentence, it’s probably not a very good nickname.

The more interesting thing to me though is why? Why on earth did I want a nickname like “The Kitten” or any nickname at all? Sure, I thought it was hilarious, and I thought it would be even more hilarious if it actually caught on, but was there more to it? Did I still believe, at the ripe old age of 29, that a nickname would prove that I was accepted, appreciated, and viewed with affection? Did I believe that a ridiculous nickname like “The Kitten” would brand the image of me as a fantastically sexy and interesting ingénue into the minds of all who uttered it? Even though in reality I was nearing 30 and feared that it was all downhill from there? Who knows. Even I cannot plumb the depths of this psychological mystery.

I told the story of The Kitten nickname at work recently. It came up because one of my co-workers has at least five nicknames and naturally I am jealous. He is a very funny guy and he is well-liked by everyone. Coincidence? So I told my The Kitten story with the smallest hope in the back of my mind that my co-workers would see the name as a natural fit for me and start a trend. Unbelievably, it worked! A small group of dedicated people have started calling me The Kitten on a semi-regular basis. Of course, when I asked one of these dedicated co-workers if he knows why I want to be called “The Kitten” he looked at me in all seriousness and said “Isn’t it because you are trying to be a Cougar?”

As I said before, maybe having a nickname isn’t all I’ve cracked it up to be.

“Good nicknames are hard to come by. Usually, you can't give yourself a nickname because other people will think you are a stupid loser.”

-- seen on Wikihow, another clear authority on many things