Yeah, I need a real name. I hate that mess. I don’t even like it when rappers do it, LL Cool J and Jay Z. You sound like a damn clown!

I guess I am of that “his momma named him Clay, I’mma call him Clay” school of thought….

I remember being 15 and meeting this girl at the mall who told me her name was Peaches…. one of the 567,983 teenage girls and grown-azz strippers with that moniker. My next question was, “what’s your real name?” And had I not gotten it that day, it certainly would have come out in the ensuing marathon phone conversations that high-schoolers are prone to have. ‘Cause really… 2 hours is too long to talk to a Peaches, but totally acceptable for a Kesha.

And I am completely with you on the “what school you go to” question. In North Carolina, it was critical info as it usually conveyed the type of chick you were dealing with. That was always question #2… without fail, unless the answer to the first question was a nickname, in which case it would fail and relegate it to question #3.

Anyhoo… we discussed this at great length and determined that you are indeed correct, there is no way on God’s green earth I’m calling ANYONE by a nickname.

Ask ANYONE who knows me! I just don’t do them. My USUAL FIRST question to someone named “Rocc,” or “Junebug” is, “What did your MOTHER name you?”

Yeah, I’m big on real names… even when they’re 8-letter names that everyone else shortens to 3, or 5. *shrug*

Uh yes I’d like to know a dude’s real name and where he went to school. In NYC it’s crucial.

School? That is important, just cuz I’d wanna know sumthin about you and your peers. Back in the day, we had the bougie white school where NO Black people went (okay, maybe one or two). Then we had my school where ten black people went. Then we had the school were 100 Black people went (in Orange County, that’s doin big things on the diversity scale). So…you know, I’d wanna know what school you went to so I could figure out what kinda neighborhood you lived in.

I almost wanted to ask the bartender his real name. So…some of us still go through these type things…I didn’t even know how to seriously ask him.

but to answer the question…in retrospect, calling people solely by their nickname in high school was cool at the time. but, i ran into somebody from my high school last month and was forced to ask her how this guy nicknamed “doo doo” was doing!forced, because i fished around in my head for his real name before i opened my mouth. only, i realized that i honestly never knew his birth name to begin with!!!but, that moment of feeling like an ass via asking another grown woman about “doo doo” could have all been avoided if i handled it right back in high school!!

You mean to tell me that a HS girl could straight up be someone ELSE, use a nickname INDEFINITELY.. and the dude wouldn’t even question her! You are making me wish I didn’t go to a boarding school! Think of all the macking I could have done! I could have been known as KeKe in Mtn Brook, Shay in Ensley, and Niecey in Bessemer. I am mad. I want a do over. I could have been laced up with some tight gear. Hmph.

I think that when you are in high school, there is a small world that you live in, slightly detached from reality. You think you are invincible, you think you know it all, and you really aren’t all that pressed to find out pertinent information because technically you can handle anything. Now this of course is based on whether your parents allowed you to go around the hood being called by anything but your gubment name. My parents? Not so much. I had no room for that kinda stuff. My dad had to know everything about the people I knew. He also wanted them to know HIM and his 6’2 gangsta lean…that’s just his steelo.

and when are you going to get out of your smurf phase, ya killin me!