People always ask me where I got the nickname ‘BJ’.
Well, first off, my folks wanted a million kids, their firstborn–they wanted badly–to be a son. My dad, who was an orphan, was named ‘William’ before he got adopted by a foster family. I don’t know why they renamed him but he wound up being called Robert instead of ‘William’. So then Dad’s name became Robert and naturally the first kid was going to be named ‘William Robert’ because ‘William’ was really Dad’s name but ‘Robert’ was his new name so they wanted to incorporate them somehow, and pass it on. When my grandmother on my mother’s side got wind of this, she said, “You name that kid ‘William Robert’, and I’m sure as hell gonna call him ‘Billy Bob’!” Well, mom wasn’t so keen on that (being a Northerner) so she and dad decided the firstborn would be called ‘Robert William’ instead.
Although I turned out to be a girl through and through, I got stuck with my folks naming plan anyway. So the name on my birth certificate is Roberta Joanne. Everyone knows “Roberta” is the female version of the name ‘Robert’. And what do “Roberts” usually get nick-named? “Bobby”. Only mine is spelled with an ‘i’, making it “Bobbi”. Joanne, being my middle name, becomes shortened to “Jo”. So my birth name converts into the name I prefer to be called, which is “Bobbi Jo”, and thusly, “BJ”.
For years I got called BJ sometimes by my parents, who thought not only was it short, but cute. When I was six, a TV show came out called, “BJ And The Bear” and the lead character was called “BJ McKay” and so that is when it really stuck and everyone started calling me that.
Same day, different year..
Other posts on this day:
- I AM back. I really AM! – 2005