Originally Posted by Gerbie

Mine comes from my last name Gerbert (married name has been for 44 years now). When I was teaching, most of my fellow teachers called each other by our last names, so as not to use our first names in front of our students, because we didn't want the students to began calling us by our first names- could have caused some problems. I have a very dear friend that I taught with for several years and she shortened my name and began calling me "Gerbie" she still does. I had different nicknames growing up because of my first name Gradene- pronounced as (graydean) difficult for some to pronounce if they haven't heard it before, a for some who have and I didn't want to use any of them so I just chose Gerbie. I was named after my Dad - Grady and my mother's middle name Irene- thus Gradene.