My nickname in grade school ... and Book of Mormon nicknames?

When I was a boy there was a fast food hamburger chain in Salt Lake City called Dee's Hamburgers. Long before McDonald's came to Utah, the advertising image of this outlet was a clown. If the clown had a name, I was unaware of it; everyone knew it as the Dee Burger Clown. I was the only student in school named Dee. And guess what my nickname was? Yes, I was known far and wide as the Dee Burger Clown.

Today going for a hamburger is practically an everyday occurrence. In the late 1950s and early 1960s it was still a big deal to go for burgers. This photo of the Dee Burger Clown shows a price of 28 cents for a hamburger, but I can remember when I was in graduate school in the early 1980s there would occasionally be specials for 19 cents (Mom and I would enjoy a night out for fine dining!) and on a rare Friday the 13th the special promotion would be hamburgers for 13 cents.

I can still remember the advertising jingle that played so often on the radio: "Let's all go to Dee's ... Let's all go to Dee's ... That's what Daddy says and the family all agrees. Dee's!" Okay, so it was in the days before women's rights and gender equality.

Eventually this chain was sold to Hardee's and the cherished Dee Burger Clown disappeared. My nickname hung on through high school, though, as the memory of Dee's Hamburgers was indelibly impressed in the memory of many people. Interestingly, the chain had an outlet in South Africa as some entrepreneur from Utah (a returned missionary, perhaps?) tried an early international expansion. Apparently this was the first experiment at a fast food outlet in that country (see Wikipedia for more details). The next photo shows what must have been the eventual fate of all the Dee Burger clowns (sigh) -- except me.


Based on my not altogether pleasant experience with this nickname, when Mom and I had children we tried very hard to choose names that we thought would not lend themselves to terrible nicknames. Try as we might, though, various nicknames took root and flourished. Ben became known early on as BJ. Lisa was called Weesa and later as Chunga (ask her). Brian became Briney when one of the younger girls couldn't quite master the correct pronunciation. Laura was Oreo for a time when Lindsey couldn't say the letter L properly. Later she was Lorp or Lorpie, and I believe eventually Autumn tagged her with Woe-wee. And Lindsey will forever be known as Cheekers (ask Laura for the de-"tail" on this one ... pardon the pun). I've undoubtedly overlooked or forgotten many other nicknames; perhaps everyone can add to the list I've started here.

In the back of some editions of the Book of Mormon is a pronunciation guide to the names found in the manuscript. What I would really like to see is a list of their nicknames! During my childhood Nephi might have been known as Pop (because of the Nephi soda sold at that time). Laman would undoubtedly have been Lame-man. Perhaps Lemuel would have been called Lemur (a cousin to a weasel?). We already know from John Bytheway that Shiblon was dubbed Shibby (ugh!). And it is for a good reason that the brother of Jared was known by that substitute for his real name ... but I bet he had a nickname, too. Too bad it was so difficult to engrave on the metal plates. Or maybe the nicknames are in the sealed portion of the plates!