Prior to reading this article I had created an additional field (an email field) to hold what I see now could be a nickname. I have hundreds of these. Is there some way to move that fields contents into the Nickname field?
Are you familiar with AppleScript all?
This page explains how to interact with your address book via AppleScript.
http://preserve.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.21/21.10/ScriptingAddressBook/index.html
Make sure you back up your address book first. 
That might be worth an article in its own right. It seems like the best method (outside AppleScript) is to export contacts, edit them elsewhere, and then re-import them.
I tried looking at this page but I get "The requested page could not be found.”
Where did I go wrong? Yes I think I can handle a little AppleScript, but will need some guidance. Thanks.
There’s something wrong with the way Tidbits is handling the URL. If you open it from email it’s adding tracking info at the end of the URL and doesn’t work properly. If you open it from this page: Socializing Siri: How-to move data between fields in Contacts then it adds tracking data to the front and doesn’t work quite properly, but works better. If you just copy and paste it, then it will load.
Curious—the stats code doesn’t cause any problem for me when I click it from either the email or this page.
Clicking on the link on this page, I end up on this url as my final destination:
https://talk.tidbits.com/clicks/track?url=http%3A%2F%2Fpreserve.mactech.com%2Farticles%2Fmactech%2FVol.21%2F21.10%2FScriptingAddressBook%2Findex.html&post_id=9942&topic_id=5568
Clicking in the email, I end up on this url as my final destination (and it doesn’t load):
http://preserve.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.21/21.10/ScriptingAddressBook/index.html?utm_campaign=website&utm_source=sendgrid%20email&utm_medium=email
Edited to add: Command-clicking the URL on this page works properly.
I think there’s an interaction here between Safari/Firefox and the MacTech Web site, since in both of those browsers, the tracking code added by SendGrid remains in the URL and the page isn’t found. But in Chrome, that code is automatically removed and the page loads fine.
Other URLs sent via SendGrid with the tracking codes do load in those browsers, so it’s not just the browsers’ fault.
We’ll likely be leaving SendGrid soon because of the cost and because we can’t turn off these tracking codes, but no promises on exactly when that will be.