Do they call each other by nick names like "Prime Minister", "The Ant", "Scarface", "Momo", etc? Or these nick names are invented by the Fed or the press?

I think some of them are invented by the media, some by enemies and some by friends..

The nickname Bugsy was invented by some journalist (dont know the entire story, but Siegel called them bugs or something like that)

The enemies of Al Capone called him Scarface because of his Scar on his cheek. Nobody ever called him Scarface when he (Capone) himself was around.

Tony Corallo got his nickname Ducks for ducking many convictions. This was a name invented by his boss out of 'respect'.

Siegel and Lansky had to appear for a judge, when they were still very young, somewhere around 1920. The judge called them 'bugs'. They kept using the name, but only when Bugsy himself wasn't around.
Or, the one who adressed Siegel as Bugsy, was soon about to sleep with the bugs.

John Koble, Capone's best biographer, noted that nearly all the gansters' nicknames were applied by journalists who wrote about them--not by themselves. As Kobler pointed out, they didn't greet themselves with, "Yo, Greasy Thumb," or "WasssUPPP, Three-Finger!" In fact, most gangsters hated those nicknames (Bugsy Siegel being the prime example--call him "Bugsy" and you'd be on the floor!). Same with Capone and "Scarface": the only nickname he favored was "Snorky."

In Chicago, nobody but the press ever referred to Tony Accordo as "Big Tuna." It's always been "JB" or "Joe" here in the neighborhood.

That tuna, the one that actually led to the nickname, was stuffed and hung on the wall of his first home in suburban River Forest. That house was open to the public for the first time as part of a housewalk not too long ago. The tuna has long since been replaced and a swordfish now hangs in its place.

A couple of years ago, I was dining at a local restaurant with a gal pal. She's not from the area, having being raised in a small farm town in central Illinois. But she's pretty smart, and we've been friends for a long time, so she knows pretty much what I know. At the next booth, some guy was carrying on with his guests about how "all the big gangsters lived here" in the neighborhood. He made a couple of references to Big Tuna and how he'll take his friends on a tour of the neighborhood and show them Big Tuna's house...and Big Tuna this and Big Tuna that...yada, yada, yada. He was just loud enough so that other people around us would periodically turn and look.

Now, I would never say anything under those circumstances, figuring, I'm getting a floor show for free. But I'm with the perfect person to create a punchline for the joke sitting in the next booth.

After the guy says The Big Tuna for about the tenth time, my gal pal leans over and, in her most deliberate exaggerated downstate twang, says to the guy, "Are you from this neighborhood?" And he says yes. And she says, "I'm not. I live in (downstate farm town), born and raised there. But even I would NEVER refer to JB as 'The Big Tuna.'"

The guy sat their flabbergasted and really didn't say much for the rest of the meal.

I just smiled.

...that's a true story, Kay. That's my friend, not me.

tony b.

Thats a truly Mafioso gal
one of a kind


Joe Batters

Dutch Shultz was called the Dutchman I think by fellow gangsters, but i'm not sure where the name actually came from. So I'd say some of them actually liked the nicknames.

I think alot of their nicknames are made up over the years by the people around them probably moer the low level guys that grew up in the neiborhood and have been around the same guys all their lives....everyone konws how a nickname can get started and just sticks like my friends at home call me Poonze, do I know why?? No....here are nicknames of my friends Dame-Game, B-Dizzle, Chuck, G-mos, HankDingland, C-lowe, Dingy, Skinny Benny, Blandon, Duece, Fat Beezy, Hershy, Jney, Jj Weenz, Juice, T Money, Sea Bass, Shloig, Skinly, Stale, Trevun, Tuna, Wein, Yith,Ziggy

Where did all these nicknames come from??? From us over the years....And thats were I believe alot of these guys nicknames come from...and of course a lot are from teh press but I think the ones guys like and the ones their closest associastes and friends caem up with



Joe Batters