Nicknames

As I started writing out my next post, I felt like I needed to clarify a few things for those who did not live in the Pi Phi house at A&M from the years 2000-2002. If you did, I’ll go ahead and let you know that you can probably skip over this post.

While living in the sorority house, we got in this permanent habit of calling everyone by a nickname. Some of the nicknames were given out of necessity. Having two Allison’s in the house got confusing, so we became “Bradley” and “Lynch”. Some of the nicknames were given just because they sounded better when you yell down the hall. That’s when Tiffany Rogers (now Mendenhall) became “T-Rog” and Laura Mercy (now Dawson) became “L-merc”. My parents actually thought T-Rog was my good Indian friend for several years…not realizing it was just a nickname.

Liz Lozier (now Farrar, but not legally..long story) became “The Loj”...Well…There’s really not cliché to explain this name. After many late nights of delirious studying and old high school pictures, she became not just “Loj”, but “The Loj”.

On one hand, yelling these names down the hall kind of made you feel like you were in a sports locker room calling out to a fellow teammate. On the other hand, it sometimes made you feel like a gangster rapper…especially if you yelled in a deeper voice, cupped your mouth, and leaned back a bit.

It was not uncommon to come home from class fully dressed in an old date party shirt, LLBeen monogrammed backpack, hair in a high “messy” bun usually with some pearl earrings …and hear a fellow “sister” yell “BRADLEY” in her deepest gangster voice possible. I usually gave a fist pump or a “wha, wha” back. (Note: This was before the word “holla” was popular or I probably would have used that too.)

All in all, not something you would typically invision in a sorority house in the south. That’s maybe why it was always so funny and stuck for so many years. In fact, we STILL use them today, and there have been several occasions when I have forgotten the person’s actual first name…or at least how to spell it. I tried to get our wedding calligrapher to use their nicknames for our invitations, but my mom nixed that idea. Little did she know, I used them in our “thank you” notes and wedding album.

The following people will be making cameo’s on my blog from time to time. Therefore, I would like to introduce them to you and review their nicknames.


The girls from left to right:

• Robyn Reams (now Robertson) – Reams, Reamsy, cReams, Cookies and Cream, Cookies
• Katie Lemmon (now Norwood) - Barcardi Lemon, Bacardi, or Martha "f''ing" Crocker
• Liz Lozier (now Farrar, but not legally) - The Loj
• Laura Mercy (now Dawson) – Lmerc
• Tiffany Rogers (now Mendenhall) – T-Rog
• Allison Bradley (now Lee) – Bradley, the Braids
• Allison Lynch (now Assunto) - Lynch