Dobovedo?

Dobovedo. Who or What is a Dobovedo? The majority of the people who read this Journal are people who already know me [too bad for them]. But I’ll explain it just in case you stumbled on to this website while looking for something better to read [get out now while you still can]. Dobovedo is a nickname, and like many nicknames the usage of it came into being through a series of events.

My name is Kevin Dobo-Hoffman. My family name is Hoffman. Dobo is my ex-wife Cindy’s maiden name. Although we are now divorced (amicably), I still have the hyphenated name and the nickname. Over the years it has become as much a part of my identity as the nose on my face. Dobo is pronounced with long O’s. Doh as in ‘donut’ or ‘dough’, and boh as in ‘bow and arrow’. Doh-boh.

Cindy’s dream since childhood was to someday own a bakery and call it Dobo’s Delights. When we were married, to keep her name and the dream alive, we both hyphenated our names. Turns out that for a guy, that requires more frequent explanation and hassle than I would have ever imagined.

Dobo is Hungarian, but unlike a lot of Eastern European names, it isn’t ‘short’ for anything. It’s just Dobo.

As fate would have it, Cindy’s dream became a reality about 14 years ago. We bought (and she currently still owns and operates) a small bakery in Piqua, Ohio called Dobo’s Delights Bake Shoppe. When we first moved to town and bought the business, all the locals just assumed that my last name was Dobo. I didn’t correct them, because I figured it was more important to have the name ‘Dobo’ floating around town, to promote the business, than it was to tell them the full last name. At the local watering hole, I quickly became known as just ‘Dobo’, mostly because people like saying it. Especially when they’ve stuck around too long after happy hour is over.

While out at said watering hole late one evening, a friend made a smart remark [as friends do] either about me, my wife, or something suitably offensive. And for that mark he received a dope slap (Google it if you don’t know what that is), and a good one at that. Well, the others at the bar found this to be extremely amusing, and in the phrase evolved like this:

  1. “You been dope slapped!”
  2. “You been Dobo slapped!”
  3. “You been Dobo’ed!”

At this point Dobo, in addition to being proper noun, became a verb.

Fast-forward a couple years. One sunny afternoon I was out on the local club ride and was telling a fellow rider this little story when they asked about the name. Quickly my Dobo nickname caught on out there. It got used to the point where most newer riders didn’t even know my real name.

So where does -vedo come from? Glad you asked.

When we’re out riding in a pack, I would sometimes get the urge to go to the front of the paceline for the last climb of the day and pull until I absolutely crack and then go off the back of the group, content to finish the ride at my own pace. I was usually riding with cyclists who are of a much better caliber than I am, so doing this was fairly amusing to them. In cycling this is known as a lead-out, although coming from me it was usually a pretty slow one! Right about the time I first started doing this, Jose Azevedo1 was earning a little recognition in Le Tour day France2 by “burying himself on the climbs in defense of then team leader Lance Armstrong”. Displaying the same tendencies, albeit with much less skill, my Dobo nickname jokingly became Dobovedo.

It also had a tendency to evlove into the likes of Dobokourov, Dobolini, or any other pro cyclists name that sounds interesting.

Now you know and I bet you’re sorry you asked!

  1. not the baseball player; that’s with a ‘c’ []
  2. as pronounced by Bob Roll []

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