I have four names. Not nicknames. I’ve never had a nickname. Yes, once a a friend of a friend insisted on calling me Ad, because, one must assume, adding the phonological onset of “um” was too much for her to add to “Ad.”  I refused to answer until the behaviour extinguished itself. A department head called me “Little Adam,” until I asked her not to. Her calling me this made little sense, apart from my height, because there was no other Adam and, hence, no need to distinguish me from a wholly hy...