Being a word lover, I ‘m always interested in where the names come from. Nickel (little Nick) was the name of a mountain spirit in Germany. He lived in the copper mines, and sometimes played tricks on the miners. For instance, some copper ore would not yield any copper, so the miners blamed that on the spirit and called it “nickel copper.”

Eventually, another metal was found in that ore, and of course, it became nickel.

It’s used in stainless steel.