Name game from old days fades away

Nicknames were given in fun and friendship.
By MARALINE KUBIK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
HILLSVILLE, Pa. -- Sometimes, names given in fun stick better than those given at birth.
Ask anybody in Hillsville.
"Everybody in this town has a nickname," said Robin Barns, who grew up in the area and has lived in the heart of the community of about 400 for 20 years.
"When I was growing up, I knew all my dad's friends by their nicknames. I didn't even know their real names," she said.
When her dad, Carl List, died, Barns and her family included his nickname, Putt, in his obituary "because a lot of people didn't know his name was Carl," Barns explained.
Patrick "The Judge" Sfara, 77, a lifelong Hillsville resident, said most of his contemporaries were christened with a nickname in grade school. "After a while, the name stuck and you forgot their Christian name," Sfara said.
The nicknames were given in fun and friendship, he said, recalling some of his friends: Bill Bananas and Scooter Joe.
Sfara doesn't recall how they acquired their names, but people called him The Judge or J.P. because at one time, he served as the justice of the peace.
Unlike many of his friends, The Judge acquired his nickname years after he completed elementary school.
"Some of the fellas from the '60s or '70s still call me that," he added.
Tradition dying out
"Young people today don't have nicknames like we did," Sfara continued. So more people in town today are called by their given names.
Old-timers still call one another by their nicknames, but as they die off or move away, Sfara said, the nicknames are disappearing.
Barns said she doesn't have a nickname, but still knows plenty of people in town who do. A man known as Tudda "brings me sheep-head mushrooms all the time," she said.
Until the year before last, an old-timer known as Curly lived next door. He'd lived there 40 years, she added.
The fact that Barns doesn't have a nickname might be because the practice of nicknaming classmates died out before she got into grade school or, it might be because she was a girl. The 47-year-old can't explain it.
kubik@vindy.com