Conversations can take many unexplained twists and turns, such as the one Deborah and I had a few days ago. My interest was generated by a report in the newspaper listing the most popular baby names for last year (Aiden and Sophia, in case you missed it) with the usual array of uniquely spelled names to make their child stand out.
That moved the conversation to nicknames where I noted that Spike and Butch had fallen off the radar in recent years.
This morning I was reading a story about Andrew Jackson and started thinking about Presidential nicknames. Presidential nicknames have been a staple of the press since the beginning of this country and the names can have a positive or negative slant, depending on the source.
With that in mind, I decided to gather a list of these nicknames into a single location.
|
President |
Entered Office |
Nickname |
| George Washington | 1789 | Father of Our Country |
| John Adams | 1797 | Father of the Navy |
| Thomas Jefferson | 1801 | Father of the Declaration of Independence |
| James Madison | 1809 | Father of the Constitution |
| James Monroe | 1817 | James the Lesser |
| John Quincy Adams | 1825 | Old Man Eloquent |
| Andrew Jackson | 1829 | Old Hickory |
| Martin Van Buren | 1837 | Old Kinderhook |
| William H. Harrison | 1841 | Old Tippecanoe |
| John Tyler, Jr. | 1841 | His Accidency |
| James Knox Polk | 1845 | Young Hickory |
| Zachary Taylor | 1849 | Old Rough and Ready |
| Millard Fillmore | 1850 | The Accidental President |
| Franklin Pierce | 1853 | The Fainting General |
| James Buchanan | 1857 | The Sage of Wheatland |
| Abraham Lincoln | 1861 | Honest Abe |
| Andrew Johnson | 1865 | Sir Veto |
| Ulysses S. Grant | 1869 | Unconditional Surrender Grant |
| Rutherford B. Hayes | 1877 | The Usurper |
| James A. Garfield | 1881 | The Preacher President |
| Chester A. Arthur | 1881 | The Gentleman Boss |
| Grover Cleveland | 1885/1893 | The Perpetual Candidate |
| Benjamin Harrison | 1889 | Young Tippecanoe |
| William McKinley | 1897 | The Major |
| Theodore Roosevelt | 1901 | The Rough Rider |
| William Howard Taft | 1909 | Big Bill |
| Woodrow Wilson | 1913 | The Schoolmaster in Politics |
| Warren G. Harding | 1921 | Wobbly Warren |
| Calvin Coolidge | 1923 | Silent Cal |
| Herbert Hoover | 1929 | The Great Engineer |
| Franklin D. Roosevelt | 1933 | The New Dealer |
| Harry S Truman | 1945 | Give ‘em Hell Harry |
| Dwight D. Eisenhower | 1953 | Ike |
| John F. Kennedy | 1961 | King of Camelot |
| Lyndon B. Johnson | 1963 | LBJ |
| Richard M. Nixon | 1969 | Tricky Dick |
| Gerald Ford | 1974 | Mr. Nice Guy |
| James “Jimmy” Carter | 1977 | The Peanut Farmer |
| Ronald Reagan | 1981 | The Great Communicator |
| George H.W. Bush | 1989 | Bush the Elder |
| William “Bill” J. Clinton | 1993 | The Comeback Kid |
| George W. Bush | 2001 | Dubya |
Great list! Fun!
Oh, but you’ve got Harry S Truman’s name spelled wrong.
oops!, It’s all better now. Deborah said I could blame it on my editor, but careless and fast don’t always mix. Thanks for the correction, Dave.