Skip?

No, I would imagine Skip is a nickname. A nickname is a name by which people are known, but it's not their real name. The cricketer Ian Botham is known as 'Beefy.' Here is the Wikipedia entry for another cricketer Andrew Flintoff.

yes. It is in fact his nickname.

Yes, i concur. Gaius Iulius had the cognomen Caesar, which means the bald one, because he began losing his hair at a very early age. The American general and President, Ulysses Grant, was recommended to the USMA at West Point by a congressman who was a friend of his mother's family. Her maiden name had been Simpson, so the congressman recommend Ulysses Simpson Grant, even though that wasn't his name. His classmates at West Point called him "Uncle Sam" because of his initials, and eventually, his nickname in the army was Sam Grant (which also wasn't his name). René Robert Cavelier inherited a family hunting lodge when he still a boy, and the family had called that hunting lodge "La Salle," simply meaning the bedroom, arguably meaning the lodge. Well, he became a close associate of members of the court of Louis XIV, and even though he had not been enobled, as a joke, people started calling him "le Sieur de la Salle," meaning the lord of La Salle, which was, of course, just an old cabin in the woods. Louis XIV was not amused, though, and he did enoble Cavelier, who has been known in history ever since as La Salle--one ot the greatest explorers of the North American continent.

Our friend Isaac, here, was well known by the girls to have round heels, to be a real pushover. So they started calling him Isaac the Pushover, and eventually just shortened that to Izzy the Push.

I can't speak for your friend Isaac, but I got the name from William Burrough's Nova Express.

Sure, Bubba . . . sure . . .

oristar, you might like to read this for some background on Skip Gates and some of his take on the effects of what happened with the cop.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/04/10/skip-gates-s-next-big-idea.html

Thank you.

In "Skip Gates's Next Big Idea," "'s" is pronounced as "z?"

Thank you all.

ori, if you're talking about the last s in Gates's, yes, it's pronounced z ((that was a bit confusing, since there are three s's in the headline). What I was wondering is how Louis is pronounced. I must have heard someone say his name in full in the extensive news coverage, but I just don't remember. Could be either anglified or francified, respectively loo-iss or loo-ee. The actress Jula Louis-Dreyfus pronounces it Loo-ee. the kings called themselves loo-ee. But most Americans, I think, would consider it loo-iss.

Nickname "Skip"

A skipper is the captain of a team. It's common to call a coach "Skip".

btw, also, In the UK, a skip is a dumpster (US).