Concerning the spelling of my (nick)name

This came up on another blog I write for, and I didn't want to waste their time with it.

My name is Nicolas.

N-I-C-O-L-A-S.

As you may have noticed, there is no H.  Many miss this, and spell my name with an H.  That's OK.  I understand.  My parents were cruel and decided to spell my name as if I were some sort of frenchman.  It's not your fault that it's an uncommon spelling, and I don't blame you for the oversight.  I've been known to spell "Lindsey" with an A or forget the H in "Meghan" (but seriously, Meghan?).  It's considerably more annoying when someone hands me a sign-up form on which I write my name, and then I find I'm in the system as Nicholas.  Like, yeah, I spelled my own name wrong.  Thanks for catching that.

Jackass.

"Nicolas or Nick?" teachers would always ask.  "I don't care," I told them.  "I don't care" was frequently interpreted as "Nick," because in America we are always in a hurry and cannot waste time with extraneous syllables.  I became accustomed to this, and started telling people I was Nick.  "Nicolas" became reserved for doctor's appointments and angry mothers.  The only downside to "Nick" is that my last name also starts with a K, and the words kind of blend together when I'm introducing myself.

Nick has always been spelled with a K.  The "normal" way, y'know?

Always, that is, until my freshman year of college, when Dr. Weller started addressing me as "Nic" in e-mails.  He even said my name differently.  Usually the K at the end is pretty hard.  Weller would leave it almost silent at the end, so you could hear that there was no K.  "OK," I thought, "cool."  I'm used to my full name being spelled differently; it only seemed right that my nickname would be different too.

A girlfriend picked it up.  Then her dad.  And without known cause, like a virus mysteriously leaping cities, suddenly it was everywhere.  In the Church.  In the blogosphere.  On Facebook.

Presumably, my use of the name "Nicolas" on Facebook left room for ambiguity as to the spelling of my nickname, and the Latiny spelling encouraged people not to use a K.  I never told anyone not to, yet it seems to be the trend.

I still sign my own name as "Nick."  That's how it's always been, and I refuse to be one of those people who suddenly insists his name is different from what it's always been.  I know a Sonya who suddenly became Sonja.  Not for me.

I encourage others to continue their modified spelling, telling them there's no correct spelling of a nickname.  I like it.  I just can't do it myself.

(I guess this actually makes me just like Sony/ja, who continued to introduce herself as Sonya while asking everyone else to call her Sonja.)

Now you know.

I'm in to memes now

BrockPhoto by Glenn Riegel was of course used entirely without permission.