Aliases

I was recently at the wedding shower of the daughter of one of my best friends.  One of the questions for one of the quiz games was why my friend named her daughter the name she did.

I was actually puzzled and searched my memory, and was coming up blank.  We’d been friends since we were 15.  I didn’t think there was anything we didn’t know about each other.  But my memory was methodically combing through its data banks and was retrieving nothing.  I knew it wasn’t her mother’s name, mother-in-law, or any beloved female relative.

That’s when our other best friend who was sitting next to me said, “Of course you know this!”

“Nope,” I said.  “I got nothin’.”

She replied with a huge grin, “Our bar names.”

And then it came back to me.  The four of us girl friends would make up names for ourselves when we were out at the bars.  This was especially handy when guys we weren’t really interested in would hang around, not picking up on our not so subtle hints that we weren’t interested in them.

I burst out laughing.  “Oh yes!” I said.  “Now, I remember!  But I completely forgot that she named her kid after her bar name.  Hilarious!  I can’t even remember what my bar name was!”

Aliases.  Turns out that there are a few more folks who use aliases for a variety of reasons. Nothing criminal, mind you, lol.

I had to laugh when Ernie, who uses Larry Bird, for his Chic-Fil-A profile told me about the response he got when he went to pick up his food. They were very confused and a little in awe of him and asked him with more than a little bit of reverence, “Are you really Larry Bird?”.  But now, Chic-Fil-A has shortened his profile name to Larry B. which has made it far less fun. He’s contemplating a new alias.

And it runs in his family too.  One of his sisters likes to use Gloria Estefan on some of her profiles.

Famous people have been known to use them too.  Sasha Fierce, aka Beyoncé.  George Costanza in Seinfeld who used the alias Art Vandelay.  Depending on the situation, Art was either an importer/exporter, or running his own latex manufacturing company.  Joey Tribbiani from Friends who was Ken Adams when he was telling his fake pickup “Europe Story”.

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other word would smell as sweet.”

And maybe even be more fun.