Originally posted by savoche My given name is just one syllable to start with - kind of hard to shorten it much further. Then again, if Dwight can be "shortened" to Ike...
If you mean the US general and later president, I suspect that the "Ike" was more to do with his surname - Eisenhower.
Our US friends might clarify that for us.
I knew a family where the mother named all her sons with one syllable names so they
could not be shortened.
The wags at school soon gave them completely different names; Ron, Lyle, Leith and Clive became Ben, Todd... and I forget the rest.
The nicknames stuck for many many years.