When I was about 9, I asked my aunt Sahay to come up with a secret language that only the two of us would know. At that age I was not really cognizant of what a daunting task it was to come up with an entire language. Sahay managed to get around the difficulty by saying that the language had one word, "teek" which represented all meanings. One meaning was my name. The other meanings in that language became obsolete, but Sahay called me Teek as a nickname.
When I was in high school, I was part of a skit with several other girls. One of them was also named Terry. It got confusing having two Terry's, so they asked if either had a nickname. I told them my nickname was Teek, so they started calling me that. My friends, with whom I did wild and crazy things called me Teek, while the rest of the people at school who thought I was just well-behaved and brainy, called me Terry, so to me, the two names came to represent two different personalities.
When I went to college, I told some people that my nickname was Teek. My longterm boyfriend Peter started calling me Teek, and introduced me to others as Teek, so everyone I met through Peter knew me by that name. Before I came to work at RPI, I knew people here through Peter, so they knew me as Teek. When I got a job at RPI, I told the people who knew me as Teek that in my professional capacity, I went by Terry. However, there were still friends who called me Teek, even after Peter left. And then new friends picked up the name from older friends, though now there are only a few people who still call me Teek.
To me, Teek is a name used affectionately, and usually by someone who knows my playful, adventurous side. I like being called Teek by people I am close to, but I prefer to be called Terry by people who don't know me as well.