Did you know that World War I was called The World War until the 1940's? By then we were having the second World War, so people would refer to the first and second World War. After a while, they found that WWI and WWII were easier to fit into a headline.

Newspaper headlines are also responsible for using a president's initials instead of his name. Eisenhower could be called "Ike" but Roosevelt and Truman were just not nickname people, so they became FDR and HST. Truman didn't have a middle name, so he adopted the S when he went into politics.

The electorial process recently spared us some confusion when John Kerry was defeated. He would have been the second president with the initials JFK.

Presidents with short names were called simply Ford, Carter, or Nixon, avoiding the overuse of initials. And have you ever heard a president called WJC?

The Bush presidents are something of a problem. GHWB is sometimes called "George the first," but the second is often just "W." That fits into a headline almost too easily.
WHM