Dance Names

Going through how I got my dance name, how people get dance names, the significances and meanings behind people's names, and some funny things that happen in the midst.

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Transcript

Nicholas Sapp  0:00  
What's happening, what's happening, what's happening? You already know. Welcome back to Poplock Parables man, where I tell stories about my adventures in street dance. This is Episode Four. Yes sir. This episode is transcribed on Poplockparables.buzzsprout.com. We're also available on listening platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and many others. I'm trying something different this time. So today we talk about how names work in street dance communities. Yes, sir. I'm gonna go through how I got my name. I'm gonna do a little break and I'm gonna go into more detail fully about all the nuances and peculiarities--that's a word right there--nuances and peculiarities surrounding names. Hope y'all enjoy. Yes, sir. Let's get to it.

[INTRO BREAK]

So, talking about names. So I started off, first name I started off using, actually my mom said the first name I ever started using was Electronick because my name is Nicholas. And I was really big into electronic music. So I started using that in like middle school and high school. However, I did not ever remember her. I did not ever remember that being a thing until she spoke on it. So I'm not gonna count that as my first name. My first name that I started using as a dancer was Nick Sapp. Because that is my name. It's short, it's quick, it rolls off the tongue, and, this is very important, it's easy to hear and pronounce at competitions. Right? 

Now. Y'all remember, prior episodes, I was you know, going to the sessions with E.F., Electric Funketeers right. So I was hanging around them around this time. And it was one member, his name was Jonathan, we called him J-Bot right. Jonathan, he started calling me Pretty Nicky after the group Pretty Ricky right? And I never used that name outside of the group, but it was always an in group reference specifically from J. J was the only person that would call me that, and he still calls me that to this day. Right? So when you talking "Oh Pretty Nicky wassup? Pretty Nicky", like dassit, but I never used that outside of the group. So first name was Nick Sapp. Then I started trying out different names at different competitions. 

So the second name I used briefly was Noir right? And the reason I chose Noir was because I speak French, I'm Black and, Noir in French means black, boom. It was that easy. Right. Why I had to scrap that name was because people could not pronounce it right. So you know you you go up on stage, not on stage, usually they weren't on stage, but you were in an auditorium or studio or wherever the jam, wherever the jam was happened to be held. And the emcee reading off names of the battlers and he say "nor, no, nowhere. N-O-I-R" and you got to walk up be like "yeah, man that's me, bro" And then and then they like Hey, man, how do you pronounce your name? "It's Noir" "Newer?" "No, Noir." "Nu-War?" "Never mind, just just forget it." So I had to scrap that name. And nobody could nobody could pronounce it. Nobody could pronounce it. So, so much for that so much for Noir. 

Then. The third name, third and final name was Libra Bop, right? reason why I chose Libra Bop was because several reasons. One, Poppin Chuck was my first dance teacher. First Popping teacher, first street dance teacher let me say that. Popping Chuck was my first teacher. And he told me he used to be called Sir Leo back in the day. He even got the jacket with the English lettering on it that say Poppin Chuck aka Sir Leo on it, right? So I'm like, okay, yes. Obviously that is his tropical zodiac sign. So I was I Oh, well, in honor of my mentor, he not dead yall, but in honor of my mentor. Right, the one who taught me the first one that put me on to this. He used to call himself Sir Leo. So I'm gonna call myself Libra. Because that is my tropical zodiac sign. I'm a Libra. Right, so sun sign. And so that's how I came upon Libra. Then there's also another OG who does the same style Bopping. His name is Scorpio. Right so he Chuck is in the same crew. Scorpio cold! Oh, so I had a lot of admiration and respect. Scorpio was one of my earliest inspirations. So I was like, Oh, well that also fits. Cuz, you know, Chuck with Sir Leo. Back in the day, this dude is named Scorpio. So I'm gonna call myself Libra. We all y'all do the Bopping style, okay?

And then why I put Libra Bop, the Bop part at the end is because that's a that's a common naming convention that I'll cover later. So people get, people, oftentimes not always but oftentimes get named, or named themselves after this style that they do right. Now, this name, I almost dropped it. I almost dropped it, and a reason I almost dropped it was because I would go to competitions. And I would write on a sheet. You know, you sign up on the sheet or whatever and you put it in Libra Bop, with a B as in balloon as in Boaz and bronchitis, be right? Um, I don't know how y'all messed this up. B. So Libra Bop. I put it on sheet. Come and come time for the competition. Right people call your name. "Libra Pop!"

No, no, y'all. Libra Bop. People come look at me like this. "It says P on the sheet" No man. That's a B. Okay, okay. Okay. coo coo coo. Right? It would happen at another competition. "Can I get Libra Pop to the stage?" No. No "Libra Pop to the floor." No. Libra Bop. "Okay, my bad. My bad. My bad." So ain't no I if I gave up I would have just said okay, fine. My name is Libra Pop. Yes. You know, that's my name. But I was like, No, Libra Bop. Libra Bop. Right? It even got you know, people, you know, people will upload videos on competitions on YouTube. And they will put "So-and-So vs. Libra Pop" now here I am in the comments. "Aye, he actually calls himself Libra Bop." And people be on "oh my bad," and they change the name of the video. So it's always like a no, no, no, no, no, no. Libra Bop.

 And the reason why I was so insistent on it is because the bopping style is rare, like very few people do it. comparatively speaking, right? A lot of people can recognize it, but very few people can do it. And so I'm like I do Bopping style, specifically. And when I put Bop in my name that lets people know that I do the Bopping style. And so that helps separate me from the crowd. If I'm Libra Pop, that's just like everybody else that got Pop in they  name, right. But if you put Bop in there, they're like, "Oh, you can do Bopping?" and then you know, it's like a claim to claim to fame. You know, I'm saying it's like, "oh, can he do the Bopping style? Okay. Oh, no, I need to see this." Alright, so I, I had to separate myself. I said, I put Bop in a Libra Bop. Y'all need to put full thing. Libra Bop. But right. 

Now, nowadays, when I'm meeting people, and they're like, okay, what's your name? Man? Sometimes I'll say my name is Nick. And I'll usually get my stage name with "oh even though like people they call me Libra." Right. And I dropped like the Bop in casual conversation, because it's a lot to cover. And it's a lot to cover. Comparatively. Libra rolls off the tongue. Libra Libra, Libra. Libra Bop, I feel like I got to make a stop in here. Even if I try to say it just feels like a tongue twister. They just, it's tough. So I just dropped the Bop in casual conversation. However, the people that have known me for several years, you know, they'll say "Oh Libra Bop!" Or I come up on the stage and say, "oh, Bop! Libra Bop! What's going on Libra?" Right? And then you know, when I sign up, I still use the full name. On social media, I'll still use the full name Libra Bop. So that's just that Libra Bop man. Not Libra Pop. I had to correct too many people on it. So So yeah, now I'm gonna do a little break and after the break I'm gonna get into how names work in more detail. So I mentioned earlier I said you know people use pop a lot and a naming as a as a general naming convention so I'm gonna start covering that in more detail after the break.

[MAIN BREAK]

Yes, sir. We back Yes, sir. We back. So as I was saying, I was gonna go into details about how names work in a street dance communities. Now more fully, right. So there's two main ways that names work. You have community and you have style. So I'm gonna go with community first. Traditionally, how you get yo dance name is via community. So do you think about people named little so-and-so right, like lil Coco usually is because they were either a little person growing up, or they still might be a little person, right? By short, rather, not literal in terms of like dwarfism, but little in terms of they just short. Or, and or they were little in terms of everybody else around them was like a teenager, and they was the only one that was, you know, a kid. And they was dancing around teenagers. Everybody used to call them a little this little that because, you know, stuff like that. All day was everybody was an adult, and you was a kid, you know, generational difference. So age differences, rather. 

So usually people give you your name, right? Sometimes it's nicknames. People call you growing up, or people call you in the scene. So issa couple people named Meechie. Right. And I don't think Meechie means anything in particular. But that to me, that just sounds like a name. Somebody gave him growing up. "Oh Meechie. Okay, I'm going to Meechie house. Okay, cool." So like, that's that and it just sticks with them. Right. Another one is time period. So some names are things that everybody was calling themselves, or certainly naming trends were popular in certain time periods. So for example, there's a dude named Slick Dogg, right? OG named Slick Dogg. And Slick Dogg, he was saying that back in the day, everybody in LA used to call them Dogg this right Dogg, whatever. So you think about Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg. Right DoggPound, all that. So everybody used to call themselves "[Name, insert name] Dogg". So so and so Dogg? Karen Dogg, Mike Dogg, whatever. Right? So he said that that was popular. And they just stuck with some people, that just stuck with a name, which is a Dogg this Dogg that right? 

Now another way so see a lot of that community, nicknames, time period. Okay, fourth. So some people's names, naturally, like the names they were given from birth are unique enough that everybody recognizes them. And everybody calls them that, right? So for example, there's a dude named Darryl Stokes. Anybody know who their folks is? He got it. Once you say Stokes, you say Darryl Stokes. Oh, yeah. "Darryl Stokes oh yeah Pomona man, oh the waves, the waves master!" You know, Darryl Stokes easy right. Some people use your full name. Even if you do have a dance name, they still use your full name. So there's another dude named Brian Green. And Brian's dance name. He said back in the day, they used to call him Footwork. Right. Brian is like a legendary House dancer. And he said they used to call him Footwork back in the day. But everybody that I run into, including myself, everybody calls him the full thing. So no one ever says Footwork. Everybody says Brian "Footwork" Green, right, like you know when you see people's names written out and it has the apostrophes, you know, so like, this is their nickname Brian apostrophe, or Brian quotation, "Footwork" in quote, Green, so everybody calls him Brian "Footwork" Green. Nobody ever says people might say Brian Green everybody says Brian "Footwork" Green. They just say the whole name with with a nickname inside.

 So that's, that's four. Five is people taking the names of a teachers or their inspirations. So you got Poppin Taco, whose the teacher? There's a guy named Taco Jr. Right. Got dude name Jr. Boogaloo. I don't know who taught Jr. but he calls himself Jr. Boogaloo. It's generally a reference to somebody who taught him. You had back in the 80s. Apparently there's a there's a dude, Teacher, teacher and students duo, called Bugs Bunny One & Bugs Bunny Two, because they did the Bugs Bunny style. That's what I did. Right? You got Tight Eyez, and Baby Tight Eyez, or Lady Tight Eyez, right? So all these people are often teacher and student. connections, right. And so a lot of people will name themselves directly after their teacher. 

Six is crew names. So for example, there's a crew called Playboyz. And there's a couple people in, not everybody has this name, but a couple people in there call themselves Playboy this. Playboy Eddie, Playboy Stix, right. So depending on what your crew is, people will call themselves certain names based off the crew, particularly if they're like founders. Right. And then finally, you can give yourself a name and that can work if people don't challenge, so here goes a couple examples. So you have this guy I knew in Chicago. I was in a crew for a little bit. His name was Tou, right, T-O-U, Vietnamese dude. His name was Tou Ger Lee. And his dance name was Gigit. He would go by Tou, sometimes he would go by Digit, by Digit Lee. Right? And Tou changed his name to 2.0, as in the number 2.0. Right? And it worked. Everybody just accepted it. He was like, I'm going by 2.0 now, and it was cool, because it sounds similar enough, it still fits. And then it's kind of like, you know, representative of his journey as a dancer. So he is no longer Digitally, he's now 2.0. No, because, okay, he's progressed, there he is in this stage of life or whatever, right? Another another person, is a guy named Ken, his name is Kenneth. And he goes by Kenzen. Zen as in Zen philosophy. Ken speaks Japanese, been to Japan, big into anime. Has Japanese friends, you know. I don't know if he studies in philosophy. But you know, just Japan has played a large influence in Ken's life. And so he calls himself Kenzen and it rolls off the tongue. It's easy, right? 

Now an example of people not accepting it. And it's not necessarily a malicious thing. Right? Sometimes it's just like people will keep calling you this name because they're so accustomed to one. So there's a guy named Ray. And he went by Gonzo, for the longest everybody knew him as Gonzo. Everybody knew him as Gonzo. I think for like a year or two, he changed his name to Madness. And everybody kept calling him Gonzo, right. And again, I don't think it was a malicious thing. Like "Nah, bro. I'm not gonna call you Madness." I know, you guys. Oh, it was just people will say oh, you know? Cuz part of it. Part of it is when you change your name. Everybody else has to catch up. Right? And so, if if you're out out of state or out of jam, and you're like, "Okay, you know, Madness?" They're like "Who is that?" "Okay, you know Gonzo?" "Oh yeah, yeah, right." Everybody recognizes you by a certain name, then it's kind of hard to change your name because certain things have just stuck right so i think he ended up just changing his name back to Gonzo because everybody called him Gonzo. What are you gonna do bro? I mean you can fight an uphill battle or you can just stick with the name everybody knows so so that's that's what happened with him. 

Now the second second way that names work is style. So the first way was community second way is style right, and and there may be more ways but these are like the main two ways that I have noticed. So style names are often based on on the particular dance style that you do. So you have, and this is within popping context. But it also exists elsewhere. You have Popping Pete. He pops that's what he does. Popping Pat, Popping Paul, Marie Poppins. They they all pop. You got Boogaloo Dan, understandably does Boogaloo. Jr. Boogaloo, John Boogz does Booglaoo. Robot Prince, Robot Ron, RoboZilla, those guys all robot. Boppin Andre, Sensei Bop, Boppin Sed, Karma Bop, Bopping style. Mr. Kobra, King Rattler, Snake styles, Cobra, in particular to Cobra style, rattling particular, rattlesnake style. Wavey Dave, Wave-o-matic. Understandably, they do waves. Tick-a-Lott, Tickin Will, they do the tickin style. iGlide. Gliding master, right. So that's how a lot of names work. Most people pick really simple names. Obviously not simple, but it just kind of fits. "Oh, you do this style. I'm gonna call myself this" or "people gonna call you that" right? 

Now, second way that that works is you have variations of names that are based on style. So there's a guy named Tetris, right? And you think about the Tetris game, Tetris, you are, you know, got all these different shapes and you put in the shapes together. So Tetris is a Tutter, right? And you think about how tutting works and making all these shapes and angles with your body and you're putting them together to create new shapes and new angles. So Tetris that fits perfectly, right? You have a woman named Pandora, right? Pandora also tuts which, thinking about Pandora's box, and there's a type of tut called box tuts today, right? So Pandora, Pandora's box, she does tuts. So Pandora. If it's my one of my teachers T-Buggz, his name is Torrence, you just shorten that to T. Right? And he does the Bugs Bunny style. So Tea-Buggz, boom. So a guy named Earthquake, Earthquake, his name fits perfectly, because when he dances, he hits really, really hard. And everything shakes. And you can feel the tremble. Right? Lady Jaxx, Lady Jaxx's a house dancer. And jacking is house fundamentals. So Lady Jaxx, boom, it's real easy, right? It doesn't really have to get complicated. But you know, people can get pretty creative with their names based on that. 

Now, another thing is that you can also you also can get to the point where you can recognize people styles based on their naming conventions. So if I saw Tetris, and I didn't know what he did, I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily know. Okay, "he probably tuts" I wouldn't necessarily know that. But then once I saw him dance, I'm like, oh, Tetris. He's a tutter. That makes perfect sense. Right? So this is something different. So some peoples, the way that some people name themselves, you know what style they do without it being obvious, right? So for example, with the krump community, krumpers, their names are always funny, because they have long names. And they have violent names, right? So a hypothetical, I don't know these actually people hypothetical krump name would be Prince Rip X, right? And it's like why? Why do you have three three words in your name, but okay. Or ILL Murdurr Beatz and like the murder will be spelled with two U's instead of a U and E and the beats will have a Z at the end. This is this is funny, like they, their naming conventions are funny to me. So stuff like that, where it's like, you see a dude with three names, see a lady with three, four names, you probably a krumper, guaranteed right? So you can you can do that, where you once you have enough experience, you get to the point where you start to understand, okay, you probably do this now you probably do that stuff, right. 

Now, finally, you have funny things that happen with names, right. So when I say funny, I mean peculiarities. The most common of them is name overlap, where two people share a name, or share a portion of a name. And it might be unintentional. But it can cause some confusion. So, for example, you have the name Tempo. You have a guy in Chicago, that does Chicago footwork, his name is Tempo. And then you have a guy who pops whose name is Tempo, as well. Right. And so there's the footage of a judge showcase of Tempo, the popper at an event in Chicago. And in the comments on this on this video, somebody from Chicago was like, "oh, Tempo," you know, the popper Tempo, "he needs to change his name because there's already a Tempo in Chicago." Right? And so people was like, Well, no, no, no, no, no. First Tempo the popper came first. He's older, he's been dancing longer. So Tempo the popper came first. And then they're also like in different scenes. So one is in the Footworking scene, one is in the Popping scene, and they don't really overlap. So it's really more of a coincidence, than like, somebody's trying to usurp and take somebody else's name, for whatever reason, right? So that that's that happens every now and then. 

I will say the other thing that happens is Soul, right? The name Soul and all its variations. Soul is easily one of the most common dance names out there. Right. And I don't know why people keep picking Soul because it's not a it's not to me, it's not not a particularly unique name. And it's like, well, everybody, not everybody has soul, but a lot of people got soul. Don't necessarily mean you need to name yourself Soul, but I digress. So, for example, there's a dude, two dudes. You got a dude named Jay Soul. There's another dude named D-Soul. Jay Soul a Latino, dude. D-Soul white dude. However, they both do waves, that's like they claim to fame is waving. They love waves. So it's one of them things where it's like if you were out somewhere, and you was talking to somebody and he was trying to remember like, "oh, man, you know issa dude. He called himself so something Some soul, right? It's like It's like a letter, something soul and he waves" and it's like "Jay Soul?" "I think that's it", and then they show you a picture. You be like, "nah, nah, that's not it bro, that's not it." "Are you talking about D-Soul?" "I guess." Showing him the picture. "Yeah, that's him! D-Soul!" Right. And so it's like, it's one of the things where I'm just like, I don't think I was contemplating this at the time. But that could cause some confusion. Right? 

There's also several people that are named Soul, directly, like just S-O-U-L directly, right. So there's a guy named Jade, who is named Soul, his name, his name is Soul. And he does popping, he does house, he does hip hop. There's another guy named Monty, whose name is Soul and he just did straight house. Jade is from Detroit, I want to say, and Monty is from New York. Right now, Jade is the more popular dancer of the two in terms of global popularity and you know, recognized across scenes and whatnot. But depending on where you are, and who you're talking to, you might need to clarify which one you're talking about. So if I say so, okay, you know, I was on, if I'm in a popping scene, right? If I'm out at a competition, and I'm I say Soul, most people are going to know that I'm talking about Jade. Right? But if I'm at a jam down in Atlanta, cuz cuz Monty, Soul, the Soul named Monty, the Monty named Soul, he stays here in Atlanta. If I say, "okay, you know, I was talking to Soul, right," or I've never actually, no, I've met Jade. Um, if I say, "okay, you know, I was watching some footage of Soul, right?" Even if I say I was watching some house footage, so I still need to specify which one I'm talking about because they both do house. Right. So I'm talking to somebody down here. And I'm like, "okay, you know, I was, uh, I was watching some footage of Soul." They gone be like "Soul...?" "Jade, Soul, the Soul named Jade Zuberi." Oh, so "Okay. Cool cool cool." Right. So, again, is one of the things where it's like, anybody call themselves Soul, it's kind of confusing, but names. Names be funny like that. Names, names is powerful. Names got a lot of significance. So that's just a quick little run through how names work, how I got my name, some of the peculiarities of how names work, naming conventions, all that good stuff. You already know. Yes, sir.

Once again, I just want to thank you all for listening to Poplock Parables. You can find me Nicholas, at Twitter, on Twitter, on Twitter at @PoplockParables, on Instagram @PoplockParables. You can also email me at Poplockparables@gmail.com let me know where you're listening from. You know, let me know how you feel. Let me know any suggestions, concerns? Things you want me to talk about? All that good stuff, man. Just let me know just hit me up again. At them links, @PoplockParables on Instagram and Twitter and Poplock parables@gmail.com. Thank you again for listening. I appreciate it. Hope y'all have a great day. Peace.

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