What's In a Name?

In case anyone new joins in the readership...haven't covered this topic in a while...

My pseudonyms, past and present:

• Jo - My middle name, my mother's middle name, and often called this, particularly in writing or reading circles, for the character Jo March in "Little Women."
• Sis - What my brother calls me, for only he and Serena can.
• Sadie Sue - My mother's name for me. Sarah Jo...Sadie Sue...I think my mother was a closeted redneck.
• Sarah Lee - What coworkers usually end up resorting to.
• Soups - Gary's name for me. He called me "Soupless in San Francisco" when he and a few other friends challenged me to give up SF Soup Co for a week in 2005. It's how the whole crappy business started...
• Red - I was even called this before the garnet color in 2005/2006, just not as often.
• The Bear - by high school classmate Dawn Burkholder and by my boss in Missouri, who knew my temper and tacked "Don't Poke the Bear" on my desk partition.
• Kiddo - By two or three women who thought they were my "other" mother.

I've probably forgotten a few.

Funny story about how I got my real name for those who haven't heard it...my mother racked her brain for a name for me, and thought, "I don't know any Sarahs. I'll name her that." When she told the attending nurse, the woman wrinkled her nose. "She's gonna hate that name."

Why? my mother wanted to know.

"Because I hate that name. It's mine."

It's mine too, but I don't hate it. Unless you say it with my middle/pen name. Then it sounds like Petticoat Junction.

"You can call me Jo/Buy me a drink and shake my hand..."

See, even Bruce knew. ;)