What "Nick" Means

Who doesn't want to know what their name means and any significance it holds? The current trend is to Google yourself and see what other people bearing your name are doing, but I wanted to know the history behind me. I wanted to see what juicy tidbits I could dig up about my first name.

My bias aside, the name "Nicholas" is, in fact, a masculine name.

It's taken from the Greek name "Nikolaos" which apparently means "victory of the people" from the Greek nike-"victory" and laos-"people".

I also have my own saint! Saint Nicholas was a bishop in the fourth century from Anatolia who apparently was quite the saviour of the lady-folk.

According to the legend, he saved the daughters of a poor man from lives of prostitution.

Nicholas is the patron-saint of children, not to mention sailors and merchants. But the guy was truly an over-achiever, he didn't stop with kids, vendors, and pirates. He also added Greece and Russia under his belt of priest-hood.

Wait, it gets even better. Saint Nicholas is the basis for the one, the only, the jolly, Mr. Santa Claus himself!!!

The name became so popular, thanks to the fame accompanying the man with the bag, that it was spread far and wide across the Christain world. "Nicholas" also adorned five popes and two Russian czars.

Between the years of 1995 and 2001, the name "Nicholas" enjoyed the honor of being named the sixth most popular boy's name in the United States. It was seventeenth in 2006. But those Canadians couldn't get enough of it, they made it the second most popular Canadian boy's name in 1997 and by 2005 it only fell to ninth.

Ooh, and don't forget that Tropical Storm Nicholas formed on October 13, 2003 and dissipated that November. That sucker packed winds of up to 70 miles per hour!!!

That's all for now, I gotta run to the bookstore and pick up Dickens' Nicholas Nickelby.