When I was very young I was called Bunny by the family and early friends. I liked the name because it made me feel cute. I didn’t like Mary as a name because it made me feel drab. Today I like the name Mary very much and would cringe if anyone called me Bunny.

They called me Bergen, Bergie, Can, and my favorite, the Wonderful Bug.

Cindy (childhood friends still use it), Cindy Lou, Chee Chee and Mac. My favorite is the Italian version, Cinzia.

La Puce. I was very small at school. Puce means flea. This became La Pucelle when I became a teenager and remained, glaringly in Swinging London, a virgin. Pucelle is the name the soldiers gave Joan of Arc, who was, of course, a virgin. Otherwise, anyone who tries "Joanie" on me gets eliminated.

My nickname is Mugsy. It was originally Mugsy McGoo. I have no idea why.

When I was a little girl I was very thin, and one day my brother said, "Your butt is the size of a gimlet." He was building things at the time and a gimlet is a very small drill. He starting calling me gimlet and gim and that, in time, deteriorated into Gimbo, which many of my friends in high school and college called me and still do when I see them. Incidentally, my butt is no longer the size of a gimlet.

Yes, when I met my first husband in college, I was registered and known by the name my family always called me, the whole thing – Mary Elizabeth. This big cute guy said, "I can’t be real romantic with you calling you ‘Mary Elizabeth’ so I’m going to call you ‘Liz.’" When he went off to World War II, he named his B-17 "The Lucky Liz." And he and his crew were lucky; they came back from 25 missions over Germany. I’ve been Liz ever since except to a few people who get a kick out of using the old handle.

And I enjoy it too.

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Yes, I have a nickname, used only by my parents, my two younger brothers and the ladies who took care of us when we were growing up. It is typically southern: Sister. Both parents still call me Sis or Sister, my youngest brother still (sweetly) calls me "Issa" (his best pronunciation at two) and my other brother has finally come around to "Julia." Though he might insist on my actual name, my parents still call him "Bubba." This is not "The Dukes of Hazzard," people, but real life.

My lifelong close friend M.T.(her father and mine have been business partners for 55 years and close friends themselves for longer than that) is known as "Sis" or "Big Sis" in her family. Her younger sister is "Baby Sis" and her brother is, guess what, "Bubba." (M.T. itself is short for Mary Thomas, her given names; her father is likewise known as J.B., short for John Barthell; and J.B. calls my father "Tyrone" because he looked like Tyrone Power when he was young. Another friend’s brother did not make it to "Bubba." He is simply "Brother," a name she has now given her own young son. I remember reading a Lee Smith short story once (she is from North Carolina) and there was a character named "Uncle Baby Brother," and I thought, "Yeah, that sounds about right."

When I was in boarding school, my roommate from Kentucky (which is still pretty Southern) came to visit and she couldn’t get over it. Every time we addressed each other her mouth would drop open. My mother calls her two best friends "Bossy" and "My Friend," as in "Hello, My Friend, how are you doing?" "My Friend" in turn calls my mother "My Friend" and they both refer to their husbands as "Boy" but only when talking to each other, as in "How is Boy doing?" to which the answer is "My Boy is fine, how is Your Boy?" Likewise they are referred to as "My Girl" and "Your Girl" by my father and Nick, the husband of "My Friend," whose whole name is Bill Nicholson. I know this is confusing, but I am not nearly done. Bossy’s children, also my close lifelong friends, are referred to as "Bibboo" and "Annie Pannie" within their large extended family, and their father, husband of "Bossy," was nicknamed "Teeny Bubba" (sometimes shortened to "Teeny"), though his actual name was Burrell. (Burrell’s brother, Humphreys, was known simply as "Ug.")

I have other nicknames but they vary according to the friends addressing me. M.T. and Bibboo (otherwise known as Elizabeth) both call me "Jules"; "Annie Pannie" calls me "Reed" (and I call her "McGee"); my friend Helen Bransford and both her children (my godchildren) call me Joola which is the name given me by my grandmother in Nashville, where Helen grew up. My husband calls me Julita, which he started doing in Spain, where we spent a lot of time when we were courting, and most of my friends call him Juan Joven (his middle name is Young), a nickname that stuck after we all took a trip to Madrid and Seville together. I love nicknames. It makes it easier to know who is talking to you and how to respond. When my mother used to yell the more generic "Darling" or "Baby," for example, we were always confused. Everyone came running, including the dogs.