Nicknames are a curious thing.
I've never been one for them myself. If anything I tend to lengthen names (Tom is often Tomas, Kat is sometimes Katrinka, Greg was often Gwegowy) but then I suppose the name I got by most often these days is a kind of nick name.
I was christened Sarah Rose. No hyphen.
At an early age I was enrolled in a class where there was more than one Sarah. And so the hyphen came in to play and I was Sarah-Rose.
Since marriage I have used the hyphen religiously and it is now accepted as legal. Same with switching my maiden name to my middle name. Legal legal legal.
It wasn't until I moved to London that people really started calling me Sarah-Rose. Because over there, that's what I (tried) to go by. How I answered the phone and how I introduced myself.
In my current job there was another Sarah on the floor. So currently I do go by Sarah-Rose in about 85% of my life. I adore it. I now find it a little jarring when Craig introduces me to people from his work as "Sarah". So short, so plain.
I get compliments on Sarah-Rose.
I like Sarah-Rose.
As for nicknames themselves I get Rosie and Rosebud. Self-explanatory really.
Oh. And Slaghands.
That one takes a little explaining.
See, in 2008 when I was in New Zealand my sister Charlotte and I used to catch the train in to and out of Wellington to go to work. We would giggle uncontrollably and come up with inane and obscure jokes which were, naturally, hilarious at the time.
One chilly winter morning Charlotte was wearing mittens and was telling me how much she liked them, she had her hands out in front of her and she was closing her thumb and fingers in a decidedly crustacean-like fashion. So I started calling her Crabhands.
She was not amused and retaliated by calling me Slaghands.
Then, in some convoluted manner we arrived at the nickname Hambag for our darling sister Jayne. And they have stuck.
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