Essay on Nickname: A Perfect Fit
There isn’t anything special about my name. Nikki Minsky. Simple and straightforward. Of course, there’s my full name Nicole Rebekkah Minsky, but that’s reserved for official documents and when I’m in trouble with my parents. I’ve never identified with the name Nicole. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a perfectly beautiful name, it just isn’t me. Nicole is the girl sitting in a field of flowers, her dress billowing in the breeze while she builds flower crowns, carefully intertwining the stems. She’s the quiet voice of reason, watching out for everyone; the ‘mom friend’ archetype. I wish I could say that was me but it isn’t. Nikki is just right. It sounds bright, like the color yellow, or maybe a hot pink. A little bit chaotic, but enough logic to stay on track.
My dad agrees with me, that I’m not a Nicole. When my parents were naming me my mom wanted my name to be Nicole after my great-grandmother or something and my dad agreed on one condition. My name could officially be Nicole but everyone would call me Nikki. Sometimes, I wonder what I might have been like if my name had ended up as Nicole. Would I be the girl in the fields or would I be something entirely new? I try not to dwell on it though, I like being Nikki. It’s perfectly me.
I have a bunch of nicknames too. Thinking back on it, it’s kind of ironic considering that my name is already a nickname. Nonetheless, I’ll likely even end up forgetting some in this. I’ll start with nicknames from my family. First there’s ‘Beans’ or ‘Nikki Beans’. When my dad first saw me on the ultrasound he thought I looked like a bean, and the name stuck. People also sometimes call me ‘Little Zinna’ after my mother because apparently I look and act just like her. I personally find that particularly offensive, and have spent a lot of time trying to disprove that, at least in my personality if I can’t change anything else.
My friends have made nicknames for me over the years as well. The first nickname I remember was ‘kitty’. My best friend at the time came up with it, dubbing herself 'piggy'. I’m not entirely sure what prompted these names anymore, but I do still have my half of an art project we made together. A plastic bottle decorated with pink foam and cardstock cutouts to resemble a pig. When I reached around 5th grade my nickname became ‘factoid’ because I had a fun fact or piece of background knowledge about almost any topic. I protested the name at first, bringing up the definition of the word factoid, which only further proved their point. Another nickname they gave me was Nikki Maxwell after the protagonist of a book series who I could not be more different from. We simply happened to share the same initials and first name.
Nowadays almost everyone just calls me some variation of Nikki. Whether it’s shortened, like a simple Nik, or stretched out to be Nikkay, it’s always my name.
