many years ago...
my wife and I lived next door to the "dell" family. one of the dell boys was named "Joe" - which is also my name. since our house had four kids, theirs had five, all high school age or younger, it was an active neighborhood.
on occasion - either my wife or his mom would come to the door and call out - for example - "JOE - time for dinner".... he and I would look at each other and both of us would head to whoever called...
it was funny to see the look on his mom's face when I would arrive at their meal time. some times, she barely knew there was an extra...
anyway - his name became "joedell" and mine became "joeniv" one word on both parts. phonetically (sp?) - niv represents the first part of my last name. I've been joeniv everywhere ever since. shortened to -niv as a sign off...
-niv