Did you know....
...the bikers' names in my novel THE TRAZ are "hokey" for several good reasons?
A professional reader of one of the novels in my BackTracker series boldly wrote in red that my bikers' names were altogether too "hokey" and that I was seriously guilty of stereotyping my bad boys.
Pepper, Zed, Gator, Stack, Shrug, Saber, Carbon...I wondered which name most annoyed her. I had learned however, at an RCMP seminar on gangs, that bikers truly do have hokey handles--and for good reasons.
If you've followed the recent spate of biker gang trials, such as the Hells Angels and Bandido murder trials, you already know that bikers have extraordinary names. Chopper, Crash, Big Paul, Wrong Way...Wolf, Ripper. Yeah, the list goes on.
Giving a biker a hokey name isn't stereotyping anymore than putting a red dot on a Hindu lady's forehead is stereotyping.
So, why do gangsters have ridiculous names? Were their mothers a bit off-center? Did their weird names make them mainstream outcasts, thereby causing their criminality?
Well, no and no. Most have quite normal names on their birth certificates. It's the gang culture that changes that.
One reason gangsters have silly names is a reason we can all relate to--by giving and having nicknames, the gang members feel they belong and that they are special to one another. Just as we give nicknames to our family members and friends.
Pet names are like circling the wagons and protecting our group from outsiders. It also identifies the group to whom we belong. If your friends all call you Blondie but the guy on the phone is asking for Theodor he is likely a tele-marketer and you can, without conscience, hang up.
This issue of brotherhood and belonging is a big one when it comes to handing out hokey names to gang members. Many, many lonely and lost fellas (and some gals), with few or painful family ties, seek out criminal gangs to fill their need to belong. Nick names often reflect something nostaligic about the relationship of the individual to the gang. Wrong Way carries with his name a piece of gang history. It's a name that will prompts stories, perhaps even elicit laughs or respect--yet it means nothing to someone outside the gang.
There are other important issues that also come into play during the Naming Game. Weird names disguise real ones. Suppose the cops get little Johnny to talk about his drug habit and his purchasing info. Little Johnny eventually caves beneath the bright lights and tasers and concedes he got his kilo from Pepper. The follow up question, "Pepper Who?" will elicit a blank stare, ending the investigation before it gets started.
It's pretty hard for any outsider to track down Pepper's real identity, his place of work, or his home. If the rival gang is out for revenge, they won't find Pepper in the phone book and won't be able to track down Pepper's woman or kids.
Silly names create a wall between a gangster's sinister life and his family and business lives. If someone, like a cop or a rival, comes into the office looking for Pepper, the secretary isn't going to be able to point him out. As well, if you hear via the grapevine that Pepper can get you an M16, you won't realize that Pepper is actually Michael, the forklift operator, who last night unloaded your sod right outside your front door.
Likewise, if one were to, say, unexpectedly win the Pulitzer Prize and is caught up in flashes of the paparrazi, it isn't likely that a rival gangster or the cops are going to recognize that the Eileen Schuh so graciously accepting the envelope is none other than...
It was fun to think up hokey names for my bikers. Lotsa fun...
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Friday, September 9, 2011 at 7:03PM 
