Spidey
[ˈspaɪdi]Spidey is the everyday nickname of Spider-Man, the Marvel character created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, who first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1962. The word has also escaped the comics: a "spidey sense" is now ordinary English for a hunch that something is wrong.
Temperament
Related Names
Gooffy
Sparky
A common nickname for people and animals
Grover
From an English surname derived from Old English graf, "grove of trees"
Marvel
From the english word meaning "a miracle, a wonder", from old french merveille, latin mirabilis "wonderful"
Sizzle
Skipper
English word for the master of a ship, also a surname
Sluggo
Spiffy
Splash
Stache
Recorded as a masculine given name in Walloon
A nickname that got out of the comics
Spidey is not a name anyone invented for a dog. It is what Peter Parker's friends, and the readers, call Spider-Man, and it has been in print since the character first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15, published by Marvel in 1962, written by Stan Lee and drawn by Steve Ditko.
What makes the word unusual is what happened next. "Spidey sense" — the tingle that warns Spider-Man of danger before he can see it — left the comics and became general English, where it now means any hunch that something is about to go wrong. Dictionaries list it as a humorous term for instinct or intuition. Very few fictional characters contribute an idiom, and fewer still contribute one that people use without knowing where it came from.
What the name is made of
SPY-dee. The ending is the reliable half: a long -ee that travels, wrapped in the -y pattern English uses for pet names everywhere, from Lucky to Sadie. It is the other end of the word that causes trouble.
The difficulty is at the front. Sp- is a three-consonant cluster when it is spoken, and the s is a high hiss that disappears into wind, traffic and running water. In a quiet house it is perfectly distinct. In a park, the beginning of the name is the part your dog is least likely to catch.
It also has no useful short form. "Spide" is not a word, and "Spy" is a different name with a different job. You are committing to both syllables, which is fine as long as you say them the same way every time.
Who the name actually suits
Spidey is a nickname, so it arrives with the character's whole personality attached: fast, light, talkative, permanently in the middle of something. On a small, quick dog that climbs things it is straightforwardly funny. On a large, slow, dignified dog it is a joke that will be made at the dog's expense for the next twelve years.
Worth knowing before you commit: this is one of the few names recognised instantly by almost everyone under fifty and by almost nobody over it, so expect to explain it in one direction and not the other. And if there are children in the house, understand that you are not naming this dog alone. You are naming it jointly with whoever has the strongest opinion about Marvel.
Common questions
Is Spidey short for Spider-Man?
Yes. It is the character's everyday nickname, used in the comics and by readers since the 1960s, and the spelling with an e rather than an i is the established one.
What is a spidey sense?
In the comics it is Spider-Man's ability to feel danger before it arrives. In ordinary English it has become a general term for intuition or a bad feeling about something, and it appears in dictionaries in that sense.
Sources
Page reviewed .