The word nickname began as ekename, which meant "an additional name". People said "an ekename" so often that the n of an moved over to the noun: "an ekename" became "a nekename", which is the word we now spell nickname.
Most people have a name they are called by besides their legal name, and most call it their nickname. But where does the term come from? How did an extra name come to be called a nickname?
What eke means
The term goes back to the Middle Ages, and its first part is older still. In Old English, eaca meant "an increase" or "an addition", and the verb eacian meant "to increase". In Middle English, eke still meant to extend, increase, or lengthen something.
That explains the name: an ekename was a name added to the one you already had. The same old word lives on in the phrase to eke out, which means to make a small supply last, or to get something with great difficulty: She eked out a living by selling her paintings.
How ekename became nickname
One of the first written records of ekename is in Handlyng Synne, a Middle English devotional poem that Robert Mannyng of Brunne began in 1303.
From there, the word changed because of the way people spoke it. Said quickly, "an ekename" and "a nekename" sound the same, so the n of the article slipped onto the noun. By the 1400s, nekename was in use, and its spelling later settled as nickname.
Other English words changed in the same way, only in the opposite direction: an apron was once a napron, and an adder was once a nadder. In both, the n slipped from the noun to the article.
Today the word is written as one word: nickname, not nick name.
Nicknames today
Nicknames are very common. Many people have one, and some go out of their way to get one or to give one to someone else. There are even nickname generators online, and people look for nicknames for themselves, for friends, for partners, and for pets.
Nicknames are not limited to people, either. Sports teams, movie stars, artists, cities, and everyday things have them too: New York is "the Big Apple", and Chicago is "the Windy City". Chances are you have a nickname yourself, or have given one to someone.
If you write fiction, a nickname is a quick way to show who a character is and how other people see them. You can try it out in one of these creative writing exercises.