To be clear: Dadrion Taylor-Demerson loves his name. "I've never met anyone with the name Dadrion before," the Cardinals rookie safety said of the first name given to him by his father.
Yet almost no calls him Dadrion. (Almost; as Taylor-Demerson quickly found out, he's already found a holdout in Tempe.) They call him Rabbit.
"That's basically my first name," Taylor-Demerson said, who also goes by "Rab."
The story goes that DTD (yes, another shorthand way to refer to him) was the "king" of keep away games in the wide-open spaces of his hometown of Oklahoma City. He gave football a try when he was 5, an effective running back for a kid who never tired.
"We have rabbits out from where I'm from and the coach was like, 'You're running around like one of them dang bunny rabbits,'" Taylor-Demerson said. "(The nickname) was 'Bunny Rabbit,' then over the years it transitioned to 'Rabbit.'
"I introduce myself in traditional settings as Dadiron. But if I see you again or if I feel like the setting is right, I'll introduce myself as Rab or Rabbit. Depends on the setting I'm in, because to this guy, Rabbit might sound, 'Oh he's not serious.'"
To be clear, his mom and dad call him Dadrion. Most of the time. "Occasionally my Mom will call me Rabbit and she's the only one I don't let call me that. Yeeaahh."
Many of his teachers through the years declined to call him Rabbit, choosing Dadrion instead. And then DTD met up with Cardinals special teams coordinator Jeff Rodgers for the first time.
"He's like, 'I'm calling you Dadrion, I'm not calling you Rabbit. I'm not calling no grown man Rabbit,'" Taylor-Demerson said. "I was like, 'It's cool, man.'"
