This week, the trial for infamous Boston gangster Jim “Whitey” Bulger got started. While reading about it in the paper the “Whitey” in his name kept catching my eye and ultimately got me thinking: why is it only gangsters still have nick names?
I remember my grandfather once describing his childhood during the depression and mentioning that all the kids in the neighborhood had their own little name. There was “Shorty”, and “Tiny”, and of course “Specs” (one of the few kids from a family who could afford glasses). My grandfather’s associates weren’t criminals of course, just regular boys, but out of affection and camaraderie, they were given a tag.
These days you come across so few kids that have nicknames that stick. I have a dear friend who was given the name “Fuck’n Idiot” by an older brother, but over time, much like the entire tradition of nicknames, that tag died out. It is only in the shadier corner of our society that the rich history of nicknames can still thrive.
Jim Bulger, who is being charged for 19 charges of murder committed in the 1970’s and 80’s, got the name “Whitey” in his childhood, when he had a thick mane of white blonde hair that people in the Southie projects referred to him by. Today he’s over eighty years old and people are still referring to him by it. In the depression, when my grandpa was hanging around Shorty and Specs, there was a whole world of killers and thieves that carried nicknames. There was Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd and George “Machine Gun Kelly” Barnes, and one my personal favorites, John “Pudgy” Dunn.
The American Mafia has entire generations of men with wonderful nicknames. There’s about ten hundred thousand that just have a generic “Big” at the front like Big Joe, Big Paul, and the mildly more interesting Big Tuna. There’s also names that give hints to what a man does like Pete “The Barber” or Willie “The Builder”, or Don “The Jeweler”, or Sam “The Plumber”. Personally, I like the one’s where a guy is just named after a random object like Johnny Sausage, or Tony Tea Bags, or simply The Spoon (all real names by the way).
Mafia names can even get a little cute sometimes, for instance “Bugsy” Siegel, who get his name from a bad temper that would push him to freak or ‘bug’ out, and even cuter like Boo Boo and Boobie, names people usually save for their significant others or grandmothers. Then there’s just awkwardly bad names, like the one for Giuseppe Siragusa, who people called “Yeast Baron”.
While many of the “Boo Boo’s” and “Momo’s” are long gone there is a younger generation of mobsters picking up the slack. A little over a week ago Santa Clara Grand Jury indicted 48 members of the Nuestra Familia, and the indictment list reads like a who’s who of great nicknames. There’s the comedic one’s like “Gordo” and “Turtle”, along with a few that are heavy on the menace like “Creeper”, “Lunatic”, and “Nightmare’. My favorite is the name of a gang member that I imagine is either a beatiful woman, or the hardest man in the gang: “Baby Angel”.
I’ve decided that if I ever joined a gang like the NF I would go by “Sunburn” which is both light hearted and menacing, while making reference to my lack of resistance to the sun. If I lived in the depression era then I would be Davey “Tickled Pink” Schwirtz, making reference to my sunburn again and my propensity for a good laugh. And if I was in the Mafia I would simply be Big Ears, which is right to the point.
6/17/13
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