A basic rule of nicknames is that you can't give one to yourself.
Except for Kobe Bryant (who named himself "Black Mamba" and it stuck - after people mocked him for it for several years), no one gives themselves a nickname. Frank Sinatra didn't name himself "Chairman of the Board." Muhammad Ali didn't name himself "The Greatest." Beyoncé didn't name herself "Queen Bey." Heck, Alexander III of Macedon didn't name himself "Alexander the Great" and Walt Williams didn't name himself "No Neck."
However, I broke the rule.
I gave myself a nickname at age 10 and it stuck for decades. Some people still call me Otis, the nickname fifth-grade Brad gave himself.
As a teenager, most of my friends called me Otis. My stepmother - not known for her light-heartedness - sometimes called me Otis. My next-oldest sister would often call me Otis. At one of my jobs, I went by Otis. The Volkswagen Rabbit that I drove throughout college had a personalized license plate: Otiscar.
I was Otis.
It's a dumb story. In fifth grade, my best friend Troy and I decided that we needed nicknames. I don't remember Troy's (Marvin? Skeeter?), because it didn't stick.
Mine did. I picked mine because I admired Otis Sistrunk, the Oakland Raiders' defensive lineman of that era. Sistrunk had a shaved head when it wasn't common. He didn't play college football and said he came from the University of Mars. He seemed funny.
I didn't like the Raiders, but Otis Sistrunk was cool. His name was cool and so were other Otises (Oti?) in sports: Chiefs wide receiver Otis Taylor. NFL running back Ottis Anderson. NBA guard Otis Birdsong. Additionally, all were Black, which made it more enticing to a white suburban kid who already had picked out his Muslim name, since it seemed like a thing in the mid-1970s (I would be Ahmad Abdul-Aziz).
Otis stuck. By late middle school, my friends would explain it to people we met ("Wait. What's his name?"), who then called me Otis. The naming ebbed and flowed. I was Brad when I started college.
But when I started working at Red Baron Pizza at age 18, there was already a Brad there. Too confusing. "You can call me Otis," I told the manager. For five years - all the way through college - I went by Otis. More and more people called me Otis.
Mrs. Brad and I started dating during that time and she never called me Otis. In fact, she used to mock my personalized license plate by insisting my plates said, "Oti Scar."
Hah hah hah.
At age 20, I was Otis, but over time, the nickname faded. When I started working at newspapers - first in my hometown of Eureka, then in Fairfield - I went by Brad. I moved away from everyone who knew that was my nickname.
I wasn't ashamed of the nickname (I would tell people the story if it came up for some reason), but I was now just Brad. I've been Brad for decades, except to some longtime friends. Some of my oldest friends - guys like Kenny and Dwayne and Matt - still refer to me as Otis.
The other day, Mrs. Brad and I were talking about nicknames and she asked how I came to be called Otis.
I told her: I gave it to myself, after Otis Sistrunk.
"You can't do that," she said. "Nicknames are given by other people."
She's right: That's true for most people.
Just not for the Black Mamba and Otis.
Reach Brad "Otis" Stanhope at [email protected].