52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2025: Week 3 – Nickname

NOTE: I accepted the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge headed by fellow genealogy blogger Amy Johnson Crow. The idea behind this challenge is that you will receive email prompts, a word or phrase, every week, and you find something about your research or family history to write about.  Click HERE to read my first 52 Ancestors blog post in 2019.

I wrote a blog back in 2017, A Family Name is a Special Name. This blog was all about the story of how I was named, how all of the Mays Boys (my nephews and son) are named after someone in the family, and other family names I have discovered during this research. Names have always been important to me, so that blog is one of my favorites.

Webster defines nickname as a familiar or humorous name given to a person instead of their real name. When it comes to nicknames, my siblings and I were always told by our father that we go by our given names, and not to answer to anything else. He didn’t believe in or like the idea of nicknames. The importance of my name was further solidified after reading Alex Haley’s Roots. My name is who I am. My name is my reputation, my character, and my past, present, and future. That is one of the reasons I hyphenated my name when I got married. When a person hears that Trisha Mays-Cummings will be presenting, the audience knows what to expect.

I say all that to say that I don’t have a nickname, technically, unless you count that the people in my home town call my Trish, then I guess I do. But if you aren’t over the age of 65, currently live in Newport Arkansas, or have the last name of Mays or Cummings then you can’t call me that. When people do shorten my name, I am quick to correct them because my name is important to me.

Let me know if nicknames are popular in your family. Do you have a nickname? What’s the story behind your nickname?