Well not to ruin a good time in the shower but neither. In middle English an "eke name" meant "another name". Over time it became a neke name, and from there a nickname.
this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2026
94 points (96.1% liked)
Showerthoughts
43045 readers
308 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
another name... "an other" name
The n from "an" transferring to the other word is always amusing to me and what's more amusing is that it's not the only time this has happened (a napron -> an apron)
At one point i thought "enlies" was a word because of how i was hearing the phrase "therein lies the problem." I was hearing it as "there enlies the problem".
an orange
a norange
I once convinced a co-worker that the opposite was true for napkin, that they were apkins before.
Also told him pockets were pock-ettes and pants used to have giant pocks that hung outside like saddlebags.
That's surprisingly not that far off, modern pockets evolved from bags tied to belts and the word comes from "poke", meaning pouch.
My nuncle has an eke name.
Great question by OP, and a great answer here.
funny that we went full circle with "aka"
A.K.A. is an initialism for "also known as". No relation.
yeah i mean i just thought it was funny that people used eke name before, to mean "another name" and now we use aka to mean "also known as"
Fair enough.
BDYKWIATTTYRN?
Crazy that I got this without trying.
I thought it was a name somebody nicked (appropriated) and placed on somebody else.
If you want the real answer, from Middle English neke name, alteration (due to a rebracketing of an ekename as a nekename) of earlier ekename (“nickname”), from eke (“additional”) + name.
Robwords (or was it Words Unravelled?) explained that one
History of English podcast, mother of all etymology tangents. Highly recommended.
It was originally “knickerbocker” name but got shortened over time
I’ll take no further questions
It’s just something your father thought up while he was shaving.
Mo-nik-er
Nik-name
Nickname
is moniker called moniker because it's a NIcK name or is nickname named after moniker?
Who's Monica? Is she a friend of Nick?
What if Dick had been a popular name…
67 rule btw
Now it’s at 69.