This is a great lead, or thot. I wonder how many brick walls out there could be gotten over because of this.?! I had never thot to look for an "Americanized" or translation of name. I have been stumped on the nick name or derivative name as was pointed out. But if there was a "stage" name, or an translated name, a whole new door is opened. I am at this time hunting for First names, as my ENTIRE family used the middle name everyday, a tradition I had also carried on. Wish I had thot better.! marcia -----Original Message----- From: Elaine Maddox (by way of Genealogy Records Service <info@genrecords.com>) <elainetm@worldnet.att.net> To: GenTips-L@rootsweb.com <GenTips-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Friday, June 05, 1998 12:41 AM Subject: Re: Growing up with sports Hi Mary Jane, Your story was very familiar to me. My grandfather was Michael Slepicka. He Americanized the name to Slepica. When my father (born in 1888) was a star of his North High School (Minneapolis), nationally acclaimed 1907 football team, the crowds knew that Slepicka translated loosely to Chicken (the actual translation is "hen"). He quickly was known as Chicken. He later played professionally for Calgary and Seattle, as well as some other minor league clubs, and the name stuck. In the 30's he legally changed his name to Chicken, the name I grew up with (a real good reason for marrying young <big grin>). Several of his male siblings used Chicken as young students when they followed him in sports, but my father was the only one to legalize the translation. Now, sons of my brother (a Chicken) are variously using Slepica and middle names as a last name. Either teasing is more vicious or skin is thinner. I remember the daily refrain in my school days in the 40's and 50's -- "Heyyyyyy Chicken, wanna neck?!" Elaine > The discussion of names & nicknames brought to mind my grandfather. When I > requested a copy of his sister's obituary, the funeral home sent me the > original page from the 1976 newspaper that the obit was on (someone there must > be a pack rat worse than me!). The surviving siblings included a Tom but not > my grandfather Anthony Joseph (A.J.). When I asked my dad about this, he told > me my grandfather's brothers & sisters all called him Tom (knowing the right > question to ask leads to more information!). I had heard the story that my > grandfather boxed professionally for about 2 years before he married my > grandmother in 1910. In 1906, he left home in New York City and went to live > with an older brother in Jersey City, NJ. He decided to box and used the name > Tommy Leonard (after Leonard Street where his first bout was, wish I could > find out why he chose Tommy) so the family wouldn't know & worry. Well, I > guess his secret didn't last long because my dad said his brothers & sisters > found out and started calling him Tom. So, if you can find out why a family > member was called by a nickname or a completely different name, you may find > another part of their life that you didn't know about. I have newspaper > articles about my grandfather's boxing and it has told me a lot about the type > of person he was growing up ("At one time in his youth, he considered studying > for the priesthood...When Tom was confirmed, he made a pledge that he would > never drink, smoke or curse. He kept the pledge all these years."). If you > have someone growing up in a large city in the early 1900's, maybe sports was > a big part of their life and that's where their nickname or different name > came from. Mary Jane ==== GenTips Mailing List ==== If you need to unsubscribe to GenTips email the command: unsubscribe To: GenTips-L-REQUEST@rootsweb.com DON'T send it to GenTips-L that won't work!