The origin of the word “nickname”

Have you ever given a nickname? Did you know that nicknames’ existance dates back to 1303? What’s the etymology of the word?

The original word was ‘ekename’ back to 1303 meaning ‘additional name deriving from the Old English phrase eaca “an increase”, related to eacian “to increase”.

By the fifteenth century ‘ekename’ had been renamed to ‘nekename’ and later on to ‘nickname’ and although the spelling changed, the meaning and pronunciation remained the same.