Mi, a Name I Call Myself. And You Are? - New York Times

Mi, a Name I Call Myself. And You Are? - New York Times: "The word nickname is a variant of 'eke-name' ('eke' meant an addition or increase), according to the Oxford English Dictionary. No data shows whether there are more nicknames floating around now than in other periods in history, said Dennis Baron, a professor of English and linguistics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, whose students sometimes greet him with a 'Hi, Debaron,' his e-mail handle. 'As far as we know nicknames have always been with us,' he said. 'But one of the differences is self-nicknaming.'"