Growing up in Phoenix, we had a neighbor accross the street who was from Alabama. She always reminded me of Polly Holliday's character, Flo Castleberry on the TV show 'Alice.' Whenever she'd see me, she'd call me "Theodore," but her thick accent made it sound to me like she was calling me "Theatre."
My parents insisted that my name was "Ted" on my birth certificate and that they made it that short because they never wanted anyone to shorten my name or give me nicknames. Which is ironic because classmates were always calling me Fred, or Ned, or wet-Head or "Farmer Ted."
When I was growing up, the only other Ted I knew of was Ted Night on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, who was a pompous ass.
In Spanish class, we were assigned translations of our given names, and while I personally liked "Teodoro," my class mates preferred "Tero-DORK-o." Leading me to adopt "Theo," the more urbane monicer of a character on the Cosby Show.
It means gift of God. In a way I passed it on to our first daughter by naming her "Grace."
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