W#ell, Azizi, you may well be right about lots of nicknames in African American culture, but it's pretty standard in white England as well. I went through school virtually never being addressed by my given name(or variants thereof), being called Tich at one school, and Stepney or Chimp at the other. I have also been variously called Gregory(my actual Christian name, though never used except by one grandmother and occasional ironic friends), Gregor(the name with which I was brought up in family), Greg(now what nearly everybody calls me), also G, little G, big G(because I am not), Greggers and Gweejil. Also, briefly, Gerg.So I dread to think how many names I might have had if I was black.It was confusing ewnough as it was.
My first name, by the way, is Donald. But nobody calls me that. And nobody, as far as I can recall, has ever called me Willie(or Willy).