I’ve had a lot of nicknames. I guess you could say a man (or woman) is defined by his name. Who am I you ask? Why, I’m Kent, doesn’t that say it all? My mom always said she tried to give me a fairly original name. It always bugged the hell out of her that all the guys would call me nicknames. She just wouldn’t understand, it’s simply a guy thing.
My Grandpa always called me kennny-kent when I was little. Now he just calls me ‘that no good grandson of mine.’
My parents called me ‘Tiger’. Maybe they had some foresight into what I would be like in the sack, I don’t know, but it was definitely prophetic. Ahem.
Once I reached jr. high the play on names began. I’ve heard them all. The most popular was ‘Fuckenthall’. Submit yours via e-mail.
Once I moved to Virginia and started hanging with Lapo, (yet another person with lots of nicknames) I really started getting ’em. It’s kinda like getting crabs.
One time when I was working at a drugstore, the manager there went to introduce me to someone, and as I was new, he didn’t know my last name. He looked down at the highlighter on the counter, emblazoned with the word STABILO, and stated, “This is our new stock clerk, Kent Strabilio.” From then on I was Strabilio. Go figure.
Sometime later, maybe months or years, I don’t remember, Lapo introduced me to one of his old high school buddies:
“Mike this is my friend Kent.”
“What’s his name? Clint?” (Note, Mike was intoxicated at the time)
“No, KENT.”
“Well I’m gonna call him Clint.”
It got even worse as time went on. Depending on how drunk everybody was, they’d start calling me anything that had a ‘K’ sound at the beginning. Karey. Kareem. Whatever.
Once I was older, like 18 or 19, my grandpa took to calling me ‘Facky’. I guess it’s cool. That’s what he used to call my dad. Maybe he’s just so old he’s getting us confused.
Once I started playing hockey more name games came about. Enter the age of ‘Hackemall’ and ‘Whackemall’. Real innovative.
Finally we come to the origin of the name I have now. After hockey practice one day, I was wearing a knit winter hat, sans puffy ball, all the way up on my head. Someone remarked that I resembled a man wearing a bucket. Enter Buckethead. My poor mom was beside herself.
Buckethead was to hard to yell out on the ice so I believe it was Lapo who first shortened it to just Bucket. Then when I got my first aol account, Buckethead was taken, surprisingly, and I changed the spelling to Bukithed. In it’s final incarnation it is now just buKit with the capital K just to be mysterious. The buKit is also acceptable in the third person.
I am introduced by all my friends as buKit and lots of my friends now don’t even know my real name. They just think it is my real name I guess. They must be pretty dumb.
So, what’s in a name? Apparently nothing. Almost everybody I know has a nickname. Some have different names depending on which clique they’re hanging out with. Mine’s just buKit. One word, and I think it’s fairly original I think. I haven’t met another buKit yet. Guess when I do I’ll have to change my nickname or move away. Hey, I can think of alot of less appealing one word nicknames….