What's in a name?

Obviously Chippy is not my real name, but rather a nickname given to me by my husband when we first started dating. He has never told me why he calls me that despite my pestering. I suspect it has to do with my need to chatter about the day's events.

I never really had a nickname growing up. I had a typical 70's name, but it couldn't really be shortened into anything. I had the same music teacher throughout middle school and high school that spun a variation of my name, but that was really the only person that called me anything other than my real name (at least to my face).

When I was in my 20's I had a very good friend that referred to me as the "cute polish girl". I am positive being Polish had something to do with it. He used it mainly when he was jealous or awed by my cute polishness. Actually, it started because I had a tendency to be heavy on the gas pedal during road trips, and had a real aversion to driving 55 mph. So anyway, I just started passing the NY State Troopers on the thruway, or I-81. Somehow I never got stopped. My friend would sarcastically say, "Oh look, there goes the cute polish girl, we can't stop her."
I loved when he called me the cutepolishgirl, it made me feel young, carefree, energetic, special.

Now, I go by Chippy. Cutepolishgirl is still alive in the 25 year old side of me, but her identity never really progressed past those initial feelings. I still have a sense of the cutepolishgirl inside me, but she was taken over by Chippy and became just a facet of Chippy's personality. On the other hand, Chippy has mutated and adapted over the 15 years I have known my husband.

Being Chippy offers me a sense of belonging, a sense of unending love, a sense of hopefulness for the future, a sense of committment and a sense of contentment, I know my husband is upset with me when he calls me by my real name.

Does anyone else have a nickname that identifies who they really are? Can one name sum up your whole being? If you could pick your own nickname, would you and what would it be?

By the by, my secret nickname for my husband is Rico Suavé. But that is for a different post.