General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Why do wing-nuts always call the president "Barry"? [View all]onehandle
(51,122 posts)I did the same thing, but not with my family. I was the english translation of my name in High School. During college I started using my extremely French name. Close to the same year as the President.
Wingers, much as good ol' boys in my native South can be Huge asses about names.
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When Barry Became Barack
Barry Obama decided that he didn't like his nickname. A few of his friends at Occidental College had already begun to call him Barack (his formal name), and he'd come to prefer that. The way his half sister, Maya, remembers it, Obama returned home at Christmas in 1980, and there he told his mother and grandparents: no more Barry. Obama recalls it slightly differently, but in the same basic time frame. He believes he told his mom he wanted to be called Barack when she visited him in New York the following summer. By both accounts, it seemed that the elder relatives were reluctant to embrace the change. Maya recalls that Obama's maternal grandparents, who had played a big role in raising him, continued long after that to call him by an affectionate nickname, "Bar." "Not just them, but my mom, too," says Obama.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2008/03/22/when-barry-became-barack.html