What's With the Whole "Sly Pig" Thing?

I'm halfway through my sophomore year of high school. And it's dead silent in my debate class.

Our teacher, Mr. Hawkes, sits up front and center, facing the class in a borrowed desk and marking the roll while we research our speeches for a coming tournament. He exemplifies what I at fifteen think an intellectual might look and act like. Daily he engages us in political and philosophical discussion. He uses poetry to teach us verbal presentation. He's studying for law school and gives the class a practice LSAT. He wears long hair, plays chess at lunch, and is known affectionately to students as the Vegan Ninja.

Several minutes pass and Mr. Hawkes looks up from his roll. Out of nowhere, he shatters the silence.

"Oh, I get it!" he announces. "Sly Pig!"

And then he laughs. Hard. And we laugh with him--for a solid minute.

Image credit: Know Your Meme

I've grown to enjoy people's random light bulb moments as they've figured out my nickname. By this point in the school year, I've stopped explaining it. It's much more fun to see my friends and teachers get it on their own.

But it hasn't always been that way. Do you know how annoying a name like Cunningham can be when you're growing up?

My earliest memories of elementary school include classmates, each in turn, having a stroke of genius and saying, every single nose-picking time, "Your name is Cutting Ham! Get it? Cutting? Ham?"

Then they'd giggle in triumph, as if they'd just sailed from Spain and discovered the New World without knowing the whole rest of the class, like the Vikings, beat them to it before recess.

"Cutting Ham! Get it? Cutting? Ham?"
Image Credit: Architect of the Capitol

I'm not just talking kindergarten, either. In sixth grade I still ran into truly clever souls on the playground who shouted, "Hey, it's Nathan Cutting Ham! Get it? Cutting? Ham?"

And I'd laugh, because I'd never heard it before, so it was hilarious.

Kids these days get points for originality, though. After we got married, my wife went back to her job as a kindergarten aide and one student called her "Mrs. Candy Cane." I had to appreciate that one just for being new. It was January; the kid probably still had some Christmas candy left.

The kids at school would have never guessed the proud history of the Cunningham name: how we fought for Scottish independence in the fourteenth century; how we received earldom in the late fifteenth century; how the great Scottish poet, Robert Burns, composed a passionate tribute to his patron, James Cunningham. Man, we even had some castles. Freaking castles.

Finlaystone Castle, historic seat of the Cunningham Earls of Glencairn
Image credit: Geograph

But sure, whatever. I like the taste of ham. And Heaven knows I've cut my fair share of it over the years. That Cutting Ham thing just got old, though--before I even reached first grade.

Maybe that's why I adopted a new nickname with such enthusiasm after I turned twelve. For whatever reason, the boys in my Scout troop at the time liked to call each other by their last names. So we had a Schultz. A Brenk. A Porter and some Danielses. I don't know what it was about my name--maybe it was just too long--but right away the other boys went to work improving on it. As all good Scouts will do.

So Sly Pig was born. And if you haven't figured out the play on words by now, just think cunning ham. Feeling stupid? Don't; it took a committee of clever Boy Scouts to come up with it. And man, was it a refreshing change from Cutting Ham!

I ran with the new nickname. By ninth grade, I had not just friends, but teachers calling me Sly Pig. In high school it became my email address and every online username. During senior year, a friend gave me a stuffed Sly Pig, complete with scheming eyebrows. And after graduation, I slapped the name onto personalized license plates and hit the town.

I suspect if I had let it go on longer, I might have tried to make a little cash on t-shirts, mugs, and bumper stickers. But contrary to popular belief, I don't snort or play in the mud. Eventually I had to cool the Sly Pig thing down a little.

And yet, after all the nicknames I've been given since then--and I've had some good ones, like Clever Bacon and Stunningham--nothing's ever beaten Sly Pig.

So I hold on to it. Use it online. Give it to my website and explain myself to visitors.

'Cause hey--it sure beats Cutting Ham.