When my father was in the military, he knew people were going to give everyone a call-sign (or nickname). They were usually derogatory in some manner, and you are unfortunately stuck with them for the rest of your life.
As his last name is “Richardson”, and he was going through boot camp as an officer after graduating college in accountancy, he was fearful that they were going to give him a variation of “Rich-kid” or “Moneybags.” As he had an extremely modest upbringing (he was the first generation to consistently have shoes in his family, much less an education), he wanted to avoid this however possible.
Heading them off at the pass, he started going up to everyone and introducing himself with a firm handshake and saying “Hi, I’m Chuck. And you are?”
Soon, everyone was turning to him, like “Hey Chuck, what do you think we should call this guy?”
(And yes, 50 years later, people still call him Chuck.)
On a side note, I was 15 when someone nicknamed me “Heathriel”. It’s a mix of “Heather” and “Ariel” from The Little Mermaid, because I always used to sing “Part of Your World” as an audition song. I thought it was pretty neat, I liked the person that came up with it, and have stuck with it ever since.
It was much better than my previous nickname, “Heather Feather.”
Originally Posted: https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-tricks-to-force-people-to-call-you-by-your-first-name-instead-of-a-nickname
Originally Posted On: 2016-02-04