Nicknames establish customized IDs

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
Nicknames are nothing new. Families have long had Buds and Teenies. Think Bugsy Siegel and Loretta Swit's "Hot Lips" Houlihan on "M*A*S*H."
But the source of nicknames is no longer rooted in the family or childhood.
It changed in the 1990s with e-mail addresses, and now people take names from e-mail and blogs to christen themselves with whatever name they want, The New York Times says.
Sometimes it is a combination of first and last names or a made-up screen name. Sometimes it reflects a personality character. Or a shortened version of a name. Anderson Cooper is Coop. George Bush, who people say has a penchant for nicknames in the Oval Office, is Dubya.
The word nickname is a variant of "eke-name," according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Eke means an addition or increase. The ability to find nicknames may be easier, but renaming oneself is old stuff, an editor with Historical Dictionary of American Slang told The Times. People have always tweaked their names.
But in an era of customization, it takes on added urgency. People want to set themselves apart, so they make up IDs unlike any other. They even have multiple names associated with their many gadgets such as iPods and computers.