What's a male "Betty" called?

November 7, 2005 4:06 PM

My friend DJ just got a snowboard with a pretty girl painted on it, and she's named it "Betty" after the surfer slang for a good-looking woman. What's the equivalent to "Betty" in surfer lingo to describe a good-looking man?
posted by Mozai to Writing & Language (16 answers total)

Here's a good place to start.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 4:19 PM on November 7, 2005

I don't know about surfer lingo, but in Clueless, "a Baldwin" was the hot male counterpart to "a Betty."
posted by neda at 5:01 PM on November 7, 2005

I'd use the term a Reggie. Since Betty was the pretty girl in Archie comics, and Reggie the stereotypical handsome jock.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:20 PM on November 7, 2005

It's Barney as in Betty and Barney Rubble.

pwb
posted by pwb503 at 5:51 PM on November 7, 2005

I seem to have heard Barny before (as in Betty and Barny from the Flintstones). But I always understood Betty to be in reference to Betty Page (this contradicts the riptionary link above which seems to confuse Betty and Wilma).
posted by treeshade at 5:54 PM on November 7, 2005

Barney is not right.
Here ( Newport Beach at least ) it generally mean someone who doesnt know what the hell they are doing.
A "Larry" works the same in a more general context.
posted by stuartmm at 6:07 PM on November 7, 2005

Barney is decidedly negative. Think Barney Fife.

I surfed most of my life growing up in SoCal. I've never really heard of a male version of Betty.

Dude? Kahuna? Heh, I've heard both of those used both negatively and positively, in varying degrees of admiration, sarcasm or irony.

Though there's lingo and language and surfing, outside of technical and action-descriptive language I don't remember any of it being taken too seriously. Except maybe by Valley posers who couldn't surf.
posted by loquacious at 7:33 PM on November 7, 2005

Barney is slang for a short, ugly guy. So no, not Barney.

The etimology of Betty is tough to nail down. Could mean Betty Page, or Betty Boop, or Archie Comics Betty, or Flinstones Betty Rubble.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 8:33 PM on November 7, 2005

Dude. As in "this dude and this betty totally took this cliff." No Barneys, Reggies or Larrys.
posted by barnone at 8:48 PM on November 7, 2005

Moondoggie! (sigh)
posted by rob511 at 9:20 PM on November 7, 2005

Doods...

It's Tommy.
posted by black8 at 10:53 PM on November 7, 2005

One more vote for "Barney" being a bad thing. I don't really think there is a male equivalent of "Betty," which isn't that surprising, since classic surfer culture is male-dominated to the extreme. You could maybe argue for "Bro" as a general term that expresses approbation for a man, but it doesn't have the same attractiveness connotation.

Off topic: pwb, for the love of all that is holy and good, stop signing your posts. I am begging you.
posted by LittleMissCranky at 6:18 AM on November 8, 2005

According to my 1963 Surfer's Handbook: "A Betty is a female Hodad. The opposite of a Betty is a Bunny."
The opposite of a "Hodad" is apparently a "Gremmy" (or "Gremlin"). No further etymology is given.

This slang is likely not current, though should I ever go surfing, I intend to treat it like it is.
posted by klangklangston at 8:03 AM on November 8, 2005

Tangently related (apologies if it's way off topic) but is there a male equivalent to snow bunny?
posted by like_neon at 9:59 AM on November 8, 2005

Best answer: I've heard really hard-core surfers refer to a cool dude as a "hodad," although it was in a sort of ironical way, the same way you'd call someone "Daddy-O" today. Mostly the terms I grew up with were "dude" and "stud."

Don't think there are any male names that automatically confer fuckability.
posted by ikkyu2 at 3:33 PM on November 8, 2005

NoCal (Santa Cruz Area): Dudes, but just as a generic term. Its mostly het-acting dudes doin' the talkin' and surfin', so there isn't much "hey, check out the ass on that dude".

I had some friends make a distinction between betties and monas -- the former being blondes, the latter their dark-haired sisteren.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 11:32 AM on November 10, 2005