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at least she had an actual given name ...
It was Claudia. When she was a baby, a nurse said she was "as purty as a little lady bird" (meaning a female bird; the beetle is in this country called the ladybug).
Personally I think those kinds of nicknames should be kept strictly within the famly and usually in childhood only.But it seems to be an upper-class thing, adults going by babyish nicknames. We also have Tipper (Mary) Gore and Scooter (Lewis) Libby.Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you criticize him, you're a mile away and you have his shoes!
Steve Martin

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Thanks - I didn't know that! Just assumed that her LBJ initials attracted the future president, or that he'd invented a suitably initialled nickname. And it's my theory, though I can't vouch for it, that the further up the upper class you are, the more likely you are to have a family name, and then you'd need a nn for ease of identification.
Lyndon called her Bird, usually.
They did go with the LBJ initials for their daughters Lynda Bird and Lucie Baines. Even one of their dogs was called Little Beagle.
Towering ego, much?