Earlier this year I took my middle son, 2 years old, to the city to see his grandparents and great-grandparents. While in the city, we stopped at different shops and a restaurant. Three or four times that day someone, in fact they were all ladies, asked the kiddo, "What's your name?"
His response? "Mister Doctor."
I had a great laugh, and passed that little gem along to the relatives. I brought it home, where my wife and the oldest two kiddos, 4 and 6, had a good laugh of their own.
It is hard to know what goes on in the minds of these kids. Whatever it is, it is something close to real magic. Names - true names - some writers have argued, are the keys to magic. The idea goes as follows: If you can know something's or someone's true name, you have power over it. Of course, this implies that true names are a sort of arcana, unknowable to the average Joe. It takes an especially astute and perceptive intellect to divine or discover what name applies to the soul of a thing.
In our family we have scores of names for each other. Nicknames are prevalent, and their creation runs rampant. My son calling himself "Mister Doctor," though funny to us and obviously a bit bizarre to the random ladies who got it for their answer, is perfectly acceptable here. I could stand up, walk to the back of the house and call out, "Mister Doctor?" and, although he might say, "That's not my name!" it would only be my middle son who answered.
My colleagues at work, when I used to work on the East Coast, were shocked to here me address my wife as Roots, Rudy, Robotics, Rebs, Reebs, Rudolph, Little, Beebop, and I have no idea how many others. It's the same for the kids: apart from his given name, my oldest son will answer to a large number of names. Among them are: O'Malley, Federico, Ghost Rider. My daughter's current name of power? Homegrown. The middle son's current name? Dickens or Rundus. The rookie (2 months old) has already accumulated a number of names: Wad, Tiny, Hulu, Huffington.
What is it with these names? Why won't I type out their real names here?
Maybe the writers are right. Probably your mother only yelled out your full name - First, Middle (initials optional), Last - when she was very serious about something. It stopped you in your tracks. It held you like spell.
I think we use these nicknames like jargon. They are an esoteric language. Like an inside joke - a single word invokes within the knowing person an entire story, a series of stories, that unite the hearer to the speaker, but leave the uninitiated in the dark - these names carry the weight of shared experience, the laughter at embarrassing memories, hard times passed. These names bear the gift of ownership. I belong to them, and them to me.
Mister Doctor is much warmer than a full four name title. It says, hey, I remember that time you and I took that trip to the city and you told everyone that was your name. It is magic. The memory it brings to mind holds me here, smiling, eager for more. Maybe for that one day it was his true name.
Mr. Doctor (Not, in fact, my son)
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