My mother didn't want her children going through life with nicknames. Her son Charles wasn't Charlie; Deborah wasn't Debbie, and I wasn't Barbie, Barb or Babs. In my 30s, I had one close friend who called me Barb, a practice I neither criticized or encouraged. I ignored it as we drifted apart.

When I joined Hammock Inc. in 1999, I began to travel to printing plants in Wisconsin and Minnesota regularly. In the Midwest, I quickly learned, everyone named Barbara is Barb. Although I am the client, no one at the plants ever asked before posting a sign:

Welcome
Barb Mathieson
to (insert name of printer here).

This week, I traveled to QuadGraphics to press check MyBusiness magazine. The chauffeur, who drove me from the airport to the Quad Plant to pick up my car, told me that the car reserved for me had my name on the dashboard:

Yes, it did. It had my exclusive Midwestern name, Barb.

Editor's Note: If an abrupt monosyllable nickname isn't bad enough, I recently read that Barbara is included in those names of women who are "of a certain age." No one under forty is named Barbara, unless you're my coworker Barbara Logan, who was named after her mother: a woman, of course, of a certain age.