The Naming Of Nickle

Keith Packard's original calculator language of 15 years ago was called "ic", for "interpreted C", based on his earlier "ec" inline compiler and runtime for arbitrary-precision rationals integrable with C code. At some point, the language name was upgraded to "Nick" (whether for "New IC of Keith's" or just because he liked the name, we cannot recall).

That name was retained throughout our ongoing work, until our upcoming first public release. At that point, we decided we needed a name which was more descriptive of the nature of the current language. Nickle is designed to support one more major upgrade (to handle parametric type inference). The name nickle, for "nick <=", was chosen partly to denote this state.

In addition (in no particular order), we note that:

The progression to longer names built around the same core is inline with the evolution of program naming in UNIX generally. ic -> nick -> nickle is two characters per iteration, which we believe to be about right.
There is a weak tradition of "materials based" names for scripting languages, most notably the "PERL" family of languages and successors like "Ruby".
There is a tradition of "materials-man" standards draft names as well. Our language standard is currently much more than a "strawman," but a little less than an "iron man": "nickle man" appears to be about right.
The term "nickle" (with this spelling) was apparently a common abbreviation among the Mattel Intellivision processor team for a 5-bit field. (The term may have a longer and broader history.) We figure the language is worth about 5 bits (i.e. $0.625 US), and are amused to note that this cannot be accurately represented to two decimal places. (Thanks to Dan Flynn for the correction.)
The word "nickle" probably actually originates from the Germanic name "Nicholas", i.e. "Nick", as a short form of the German "Kupfernickel" or "copper demon", for the deceptive copper color of nickle ore. (Note that this is also the origin of the term "Old Nick" to denote the Christian Satan. Sources tell us that the cute little BSD daemon is named "Chuck". We think "Nick" would be a better choice.)
Recall the famous joke about little-language designer Nickle's Worth. ("Europeans call him by name, but Americans call him by value.") Niklaus Wirth was easily the single biggest influence on my development of interest in and understanding of programming languages and language design.
Several programming language researchers are named "Nickle" or "Nickel". Hopefully, they will feel flattered and supportive.
Remember the famous Dilbertian "condescending UNIX computer user" from Scott Adams' "Computer Holy Wars" series? "Here's a nickle, kid: buy yourself a better computer."

Finally, a note about the spelling. "Nickel" appears to be the preferred spelling for both the metal and the U.S. coin. The New American Heritage Dictionary does not allow the variant "nickle", although the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary does. A Google search reveals a vast predominance of the former spelling over the latter. However, for a variety of reasons, some noted above, we have chosen the more problematic variant. As the old gag goes, you can call it anything you like. Just call it.

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