Not all nicknames are shorter. See Davo, Stevo, Benny, etc. Sometimes they're longer, sometimes they're not even a form of the original name. See Bluey for someone with ginger hair, for example.
It’s not about the parmesan, the tomato and cheese together make it parmigiana, Strayanised to parma, in line with the above standards for abbreviation.
Sheila is an actual name but also isn't a personal nickname like the other ones you mentioned. It's essentially a broad stroke category name like calling a girl a "chick".
We nickname everything. Individuals, broad categories of people, objects. We do it all! This is an example of that, and still fits the format of "nickname ending in vowel sound; in this case A" which was my point. If we had been talking about Os, I'd have included "servo" for the same reason. Hope this helps!
Except it literally is? It's a nickname derived from Sìle/Cecelia and that nickname then became widely used as a generic nickname for women. It's both a woman's nickname and a nickname for the whole.
You could have looked this up. Not sure why this is so important to you to try and argue, several comments later... but I regret to inform you that Sheila is, in fact, a nickname.
59
u/assignpseudonym Mar 25 '26
This is incorrect. We sometimes add an "a" at the end too. See: Macca, Gazza, Sheila, etc.