People who smack of desperation enough to give themselves a nickname.
A programme I watched yesterday featured some geezer who tried (unsuccessfully) to persuade his friends to call him 'the hat' or just 'hat' because he wore, well ... a hat. Turned out the reason he wore the hat in the first place was because he was going bald, and the reason he featured in the programme I watched was because he'd murdered his ex girlfriend.
Anyway, because of the hat/nickname beggy thing, I got the ick long before I discovered he was a murderer.