T-Mac or Nalo

[WUnderhill]

I just don’t see Nalo catching on with the general public. I’m sure it makes sense for his friends but it feels forced from my perspective. Tmac is just a natural shortening of his name. Tet feels most natural, imo, as is evidenced by basically everybody naturally just calling him that before they are told not to. Imo, mama bear should just get over that one, but hey it’s what moms do. If he is ok with Tet, as he said he is, I think it’s fair game.

Either way, if you have to take a poll on a nickname, I think that is an answer in and of itself.

[FattyFatFat]

Go for 1200 yards and 10 TDs and I’ll call him whatever he wants. 

[PNW_PantherMan]

10 minutes ago, WUnderhill said:

I just don’t see Nalo catching on with the general public. I’m sure it makes sense for his friends but it feels forced from my perspective. Tmac is just a natural shortening of his name. Tet feels most natural, imo, as is evidenced by basically everybody naturally just calling him that before they are told not to. Imo, mama bear should just get over that one, but hey it’s what moms do. If he is ok with Tet, as he said he is, I think it’s fair game.

Either way, if you have to take a poll on a nickname, I think that is an answer in and of itself.

Yea I don't think most people were calling DeAndre Hopkins "Nuk" either.

[kungfoodude]

How long before we hear a Tet Offensive reference in a broadcast?

[WUnderhill]

4 hours ago, kungfoodude said:

How long before we hear a Tet Offensive reference in a broadcast?

I’m hoping very early because that probably means he’s balling.

[Jackie Lee]

 

[TD alt]

On 5/2/2025 at 2:09 PM, tukafan21 said:

Full honesty...

I'd never even heard (or maybe more accurately noticed?) the Nalo nickname until after we drafted him and it's come up so much because people were asking him about nicknames.

Arizona fans always just called him T-Mac the last few years and I have no recollection of ever seeing/hearing Nalo.  If anything I saw it and didn't even realize who they were talking about or figured it was some auto correct so I just glossed over it without a second thought.

So for me he'll always be T-Mac

This guy will always be the original T-Mac.

But if Tetairoa wants to be the second T-Mac in sports, I guess that will work too. I may just have to get used to Nalo.

[tukafan21]

1 hour ago, TD alt said:

This guy will always be the original T-Mac.

But if Tetairoa wants to be the second T-Mac in sports, I guess that will work too. I may just have to get used to Nalo.

The funny thing is I was a HUGE T-Mac fan back in the day, he was my favorite player for a long time.  Have a few pair of his shoes, his jersey, even made a really cool school around him too.

Guess I was just always destined to be a T-Mac fan lol

[jfra78]

I'm just going to call him Tet, it's not disrespectful and it sounds better than tmac. I dont care what he wants to be called, people don't choose their nick names.  I have a cousin we call boo boo, I'm sure he hates it but oh well, that will always be his name.

[tukafan21]

27 minutes ago, jfra78 said:

I'm just going to call him Tet, it's not disrespectful and it sounds better than tmac. I dont care what he wants to be called, people don't choose their nick names.  I have a cousin we call boo boo, I'm sure he hates it but oh well, that will always be his name.

You don't think it's disrespectful, but you're also not realizing that his name is not just his name, it has a deeper meaning in their culture, so shortening it to something that doesn't have the same meaning, is disrespectful to them.

It's not calling some random white American dude John instead of Jonathan.

The name has a deeper meaning in the Polynesian culture, to where if you shorten it, it no longer means the same thing.  To him and his family, T-Mac or Nalo is a nickname, "Tet" isn't a nickname, it's changing his name that has a deeper meaning to them.

And if that random white dude was named Jonathan for a deeper reason, and him or his family say they feel calling them "John" is disrespectful, then I'd have enough respect of that person to not call them John.

Why is that so hard?  What is wrong with this country that when someone says, "calling me by X name is disrespectful to me and my family" that our response is, "screw them, I'm going to call you what I want to call you"

Edited 9 hours ago by tukafan21

[jfra78]

10 minutes ago, tukafan21 said:

You don't think it's disrespectful, but you're also not realizing that his name is not just his name, it has a deeper meaning in their culture, so shortening it to something that doesn't have the same meaning, is disrespectful to them.

It's not calling some random white American dude John instead of Jonathan.

The name has a deeper meaning in the Polynesian culture, to where if you shorten it, it no longer means the same thing.  To him and his family, T-Mac or Nalo is a nickname, "Tet" isn't a nickname, it's changing his name that has a deeper meaning to them.

And if that random white dude was named Jonathan for a deeper reason, and him or his family say they feel calling them "John" is disrespectful, then I'd have enough respect of that person to not call them John.

Why is that so hard?  What is wrong with this country that when someone says, "calling me by X name is disrespectful to me and my family" that our response is, "screw them, I'm going to call you what I want to call you"

So what does tmac mean in his culture?

[jfra78]

11 minutes ago, tukafan21 said:

You don't think it's disrespectful, but you're also not realizing that his name is not just his name, it has a deeper meaning in their culture, so shortening it to something that doesn't have the same meaning, is disrespectful to them.

It's not calling some random white American dude John instead of Jonathan.

The name has a deeper meaning in the Polynesian culture, to where if you shorten it, it no longer means the same thing.  To him and his family, T-Mac or Nalo is a nickname, "Tet" isn't a nickname, it's changing his name that has a deeper meaning to them.

And if that random white dude was named Jonathan for a deeper reason, and him or his family say they feel calling them "John" is disrespectful, then I'd have enough respect of that person to not call them John.

Why is that so hard?  What is wrong with this country that when someone says, "calling me by X name is disrespectful to me and my family" that our response is, "screw them, I'm going to call you what I want to call you"

I will also reply to the last part.  My name is actually Jonathan and I go by Jon.  My mother hates it but to me only my mother and wife call me Jonathan and to hear another person call me that is odd. It's just natural to call someone with a long name a shorter version of that name.  Unless tet actually translate to something disrespectful, Then there's no harm in it.  

[csx]

I will call him Jonathan since this is about me doing what I want.

[tukafan21]

1 hour ago, jfra78 said:

So what does tmac mean in his culture?

T-Mac is a nickname, Tet is a shortening of Tetairoa.

Like you said below... your name is Jonathan, I could see "Jonny" being considered a nickname, but Jon isn't a nickname, it's a shortening of Johnathan, see the difference?

1 hour ago, jfra78 said:

I will also reply to the last part.  My name is actually Jonathan and I go by Jon.  My mother hates it but to me only my mother and wife call me Jonathan and to hear another person call me that is odd. It's just natural to call someone with a long name a shorter version of that name.  Unless tet actually translate to something disrespectful, Then there's no harm in it.  

And if your mom named you Jonathan for it's biblical significance/meaning, because she was very religious, I think it would be different.

T-Mac is Polynesian, so much in their culture has deeper meaning for them, particularly names.  So for his mom to feel this way, I highly doubt it's just because she likes the name Tetairoa and not Tet, it's much more likely than not to be because the name itself has a deeper meaning in their culture.  

Particularly as T-Mac himself has often talked about how much his Polynesian heritage means to himself and his family.

And no, I'm not saying all this because of how much he's my guy, if he was just "normal american" and his name was Jonathan and he didn't like fans calling him Jon, I'd probably just say tough poo.  It's that he's Polynesian and I know things like names have a much deeper meaning in their culture than they do in ours for the most part.

For whatever it's worth, a quick google search.......

Edited 7 hours ago by tukafan21