Athlete Nicknames [split]

[bambam]

DJ listed Norwood "Barney" Ewell. Was Barney his middle name or was it truly a "nickname?" Perhaps similarly, Paul Drayton's "real" first name has been listed as Otis.

Henry Norwood Ewell.

Otis Paul Drayton, Otie to his friends.

And some others who went by their middle names: Frederick Carlton Lewis, Frederick Morgan Taylor, James Randel Matson, William Parry O'Brien, William DeHart Hubbard, John Kenneth Doherty, William Bruce Jenner

James Edwin Meredith = Ted

Walter Francis Davis = Buddy
Warren Jay Cawley = Rex

Then there are all the Chips (Charles Lamont Jenkins, Jr.), Buds (Emerson Lane Spencer, Franklin Wesley Held, Lemuel Clarence Houser) and Treys (James Edward Hardee, III) of the world.

Then there's John Walter Beardsley Tewskbury - oh, ... wait a minute

(Its an inside joke for me and DJ)

[bambam]

Johnny "Lam" Jones. His bio is very interesting.

As opposed to Johnny "Ham" Jones, his football teammate at U Texas, which is why they were given the nicknames, to differentiate them.

[Conor Dary]

...Otis Paul Drayton, Otie to his friends.

Speaking of Drayton...not sure if it's a nickname because he changed his surname too: Peter Buniak = Jerome Drayton

He legally changed his entire name. Not a nickname.

And he competed in the Olympics twice, once under each name.

I remember a contemporary story that he picked the name out of a phone book.

[EME1980]

http://allafrica.com/stories/201210210083.html

Janeth Jepkoskei has changed her nickname from The Eldoret Express to The KQ Express following a sponsorship deal with Kenyan Airways whose flight numbers all start with KQ.

[gh]

There was a popular tale at one point that Jerome Drayton had picked his name because he was enamoured of his sprint contemporaries Harry Jerome and Paul Drayton.

When asked if that were true his response was something like, "If I'd wanted to be named after my heroes I'd be Abebe Clarke"

[shivfan]

The greatest monicker of all time belonged to Roy Martin, but since this is a family website.... Allow me just to say it was an 8-word rhyming couplet.

[shivfan]

I just realized we've missed one of the best ever: "Multiple Mac" Willkins.

(as an aside, whose mother and father were... no really.... Dick & Jane!)

This thread cracks me up....

[shivfan]

Justin "Juice" Gatlin. (All things considered, not a particularly good nickname, IMHO)