To ask why we call him 'Boris' ?

[OrchardBlack]

It really irks me.

No other PM has been referred to in this way (aside from maybe 'Maggie' but even that is usually by a small group and she is mostly known as Thatcher.

We wouldn't call the others Gordon, Tony, John or Theresa. It's either just their last name or both first AND last.

I can only imagine it's because he has managed to carve out an informal 'man of the people' nonsense caricature??

It’s partly deliberate on his part but also because he was a media personality before he became PM.
As a PP pointed out, it’s not even his first name.

I think it's because there are hardly any other Boris's about so you can use the name easily in conversation and everyone knows that you are talking about Boris Johnson. I mean, Boris Becker doesn't like to pay his taxes and Boris Johnson doesn't like to pay his own bills but, mostly it's fine.

Yep I think this is largely it.

To me, 'Boris' has an almost comical, cartoonish feel to it - it's the 'b' sound I think, and that it's unusual - and if I wanted to do a bit of pop psychology I suspect that suited his aspirations of being the jovial buffoony type to win people over so he stuck with it (and because it's more unusual than Johnson, everyone else did too).

Because he manipulated people into it.
He created Boris the affable buffoon and people lapped it up.

Johnson on its own would just be David Mitchell's manager on Peep Show for me...

I got a twitter ban for calling Maggie Thatcher an evil cunt. They told me if I deleted it they'd let me back. Haven't been on there in weeks... 🤷🏻‍♀️

His whole image is contrived. His dishevelled appearance, bumbling persona and "Call me Boris". He is trying to appear to be your mate.

It happens a lot, but to a lesser extent with Rishi Sunak as well. I think it's driven by headlines amd the need to reduce a story to a snappy phrase.

I think we should bring back proper monikers for politicans/leaders. Historically there's been people like Alexander the Great, Ivan the Terrible, William the conquerer, etc. Would be great to all start collectively referring to him as "Boris the Liar".

Think it would be one of the few things that would actually register with/bother him if he were to go down in history as that.

As pp have said, he was a media personality before he was a politician. The Bumbling Boris persona got laughs on Have I Got News for You. It's not funny anymore.

I always refer to him as Boris Johnson, never just Boris. He is not my friend.

It's an unusual first name but his surname is very common. "Johnson" could be referring to a lot of people.

Gordon Brown got called just "Gordon" quite a bit, not to the extend of Boris though.

Well, it worked on you

Nope. It's because he's good at PR. He has successfully cultivated his image that has made him Teflon. He will survive "partygate" because of this. His opponents hate it, so even better.

Because he was known as Boris when he was major, so it’s stuck

Sorry, that was @Sparlingbrook

It's because he's our friend.

It's his stage name. Why not Mr DePfeffel?

Totally this 🤣🤣

It's also a Tory thing. We do nicknames. Usually surnames. But Maggie, Boris, the Moggster, Fabs...

Because “Johnson” is slang for penis……

He created a clown persona around the name Boris. That kind of likeable posh twat image that people bought and saw him as funny as a mayor. How fooled they were

BJ has a ring to it ............

it is how he is known
he was known before he became prime minister
it is a jokey reference