What's in a Name? In My Case, Confusion

When you have a gender-neutral name, half the world gets it wrong

In 1969 Johnny Cash had his biggest hit with the Shel Silverstein song “A Boy Named Sue.” I remember enjoying the song at the time, and now I think I know the reason: like the boy named Sue, I also had a girl’s name.

That’s right. For the first 18 years of my life, I was known as Nicky. Maybe it wasn’t spelled like the girls usually spelled it, but everyone who came across my name without knowing its bearer always assumed Nicky was a female. Sure, I know there were some famous male Nickys: there’s the rock keyboardist Nicky Hopkins and actor Nicky Henson. But do an internet search for “Famous people named Nicky” and you’ll see that at least half of them are women.

I grew up in the sixties and seventies before unisex or gender neutral names were commonly used. I didn’t go to school with anyone named Jordan or Skyler or Payton. My parents had named me after my grandfather, Nicodemus Walker, a man who apparently hated his name so much that he went instead by the nickname “Deem;” it’s even on his gravestone. But from the time I was born, I was called Nicky, which probably seemed like a fine name for a six-pound-five-ounce baby, but turned out to be problematic for someone any older.

At least if that someone was a guy in the 1960s.

Around seventh grade I learned that there were a couple of girls in my school with the same name. One spelled it “Nicki,” and another “Nikki,” but their names were pronounced like mine. On the first day of class, my home room teacher saw my name on the seating chart and assumed I was female too. She had her new student’s names written on the chalk board with the girls in one column and the boys in the other. I saw the mistake, but kept silent as she took roll. When she came to my name, I answered, “Here,” and most of the class chuckled. The teacher paused, stared at me for a moment and asked, “You’re Nicky?” I told her I was. She hurriedly erased my name from column “A” and wrote it at the bottom of “B.” Junior high kids can be cruel, and I became the butt of many “wrong column sissy” jokes that first week of school.

A similar, yet more obvious mistake occurred when I got to gym class. The coach was a tough Korean War veteran who was always looking for a way to discipline some young man’s failure with 25 laps around the gym, or for especially heinous behavior, utilizing his infamous two-foot-long fiberglass paddle. Like my home-room teacher, he also stumbled over my name during roll call, but his reaction was more excessive.

“Where’s Nicky Walker?” he asked when he got to my name.

“Here,” I said, with as low-pitched a voice as a not-quite pubescent boy could muster.

“So you are a guy,” the coach said. It was more of a question.

“Yes,” I affirmed.

“Just barely!” a taller and more matured classmate yelled, and the entire class howled.

The coach looked at me scornfully. (Remember this was the sixties, and my coach was “old-school,” which was just a kind way of saying he was a bully.) “That’s a pretty piss ant name for a guy,” he muttered. More laughter.

I could tell gym was not going to be my favorite class.

In my senior year, my name apparently appeared on mailing lists of soon-to-be graduates, and I began to receive flyers, post cards and advertisements from every all-female college in the state and from every business catering to women in a 500-mile radius of my home. Most were addressed to “Miss Nicky Walker” and came from fragrance shops, jewelry stores, and even one from a lingerie boutique offering a free bra fitting. I was tempted to visit the store just to see their faces when I presented the coupon in person, but I chickened out.

When I went away to college I decided to put an end to this appellation miscommunication and start fresh. Determined to reinvent myself, I began to introduce myself simply as “Nick.” One syllable.

But my two-syllable identity didn’t give up so easily. When I arrived for freshman orientation I gave my name to the dormitory desk clerk, who scanned the list of new students signed up for that session. “Your name’s not on here,” he announced. “Are you sure you’re supposed to be at orientation this week?”

I sighed and then said flatly, “Check the women’s list. Check for Nicky.”

He looked at it. “Yep, here you are,” he laughed. “They thought you were a girl,” then added, “I would have thought so too.”

“So I guess I’m staying in the women’s dorm this week, huh?” I said with a straight face. “I can’t wait to meet my roommate.”

He looked shocked, then slowly his lips turned up. “Nice try,” he smiled.

In recent years there have been more male Nickys than when I was younger. There was motorcycle racer Nicky Hayden, British soccer player Nicky Adams, and actor Nicky Katt. Even one of the main male characters on NBC’s This is Us is named Nicky. So the mix-ups involving my name have been fewer, but they still crop up periodically. Now that I’m accustomed to it, I confess that I actually sometimes get cruel satisfaction when someone assumes the wrong gender. I have some fun when I answer a telemarketing call and hear the voice on the other end ask, “I’m calling for Nicky Walker. Is she available?”

“This is she,” I answer in my deepest TV voice.

The pregnant pause that follows just never gets old.

© Nick Walker 2020

Anybody else have a gender neutral name? Has it ever been a problem? Scroll down and leave a comment.