Nicknames

Every phase of my life has brought with it another nickname. Some have lasted beyond that phase, but for the most part they are only temporary. Now that I’ve acquired numerous ones from various sections of my life, I look back and really appreciate how each has had their own title for me. That way whenever I hear it again I will immediately think back to that point and those stories associated with that it. It is also quite fitting since as I grow and mature I’m not really the same person…so while I’ll always be Brian, I was only B-Hova for a few months. The one exception to this trend is the nickname that I love the most…Elbow. So in this blog I will share a few of my titles and stories of their origin.

B
This is pretty obvious and it was my first nickname…I would guess I was called this as early as third grade. Due to the simplicity of it numerous individuals have referred to me as B, but I guess whenever I hear it I associate it with my first best friend, Joel. I believe that he was the first person ever to call me it.

Elbow
This name originated at the start of my high school years, and there are two people that claim credit for dubbing me Elbow. The very first time occurred when I was dating this girl, Debbie, and I was talking to her on the phone. Her sister asked who was on the phone, and she missed heard my last name and replied, “Who is Brian Elbow?” She then proceeded to call me Elbow boy. The other person was a dear friend of mine, Steph, who said that she started calling me Elbow because it was similar to my last name (this took place after the origin, but she claims to have never heard it before). The name caught on quickly and everyone in high school called me this. For awhile I decided to try and be cool by spelling it different (LBO), but after the first few people asked who is L – B.O. I decided to stick with the traditional spelling. It seemed less cool being “The Body Odor.” There has also been various modifications to this name (Elbow Grease, Elbow Noodle, Bo, etc), but just plain Elbow has always been my favorite.

Brian Boytano
This has a cool little story that became an ongoing joke for a good portion of my undergrad years at WMU. Two of my closest friends (well they would be) were looking for me in the dorms, but at that time they didn’t know my last name. So they were just walking up and down the hall yelling Brian. Well they had just watched the South Park movie and were also singing “What would Brian Boytano do?” Then they began to yell for Brian Boytano, and right then I walked out in the hall…thus I was Brian Boytano. This resulted in quite a bit of fun at parties…”hey everybody Brian Boytano is here.” Then depending on my mood I would either say I just had the same name or tell them I’m a famous figure skater. The best part of this joke was that our good friend Andrea hung out with us for 3 years before finding out my name wasn’t Brian Boytano. We always wondered why year after year we would go out and she just won’t let the joke die. Finally she was hanging out at our apartment and saw a piece of my mail and asked who this guy was. We all started to laugh until it dawned on us that she didn’t know my real last name. I had to show her numerous items in my apartment with my name on it before she would believe me.

I would like to share more nicknames (B-Hova, L-Bling, etc), but I believe this blog is already too long. It really feels like just even remembering the nickname is the same as remembering the people close to me during that period.