Originally Posted by
Doctor Bifrost
This is not quite an answer to your question but: I consider the moment that Dick Grayson took on the Nightwing name as one of the great moments in DCU history. He said he did it to honor the two greatest heroes he knew, the ones to whom he owed the most: Batman and Superman. But to understand that, you have to know some of the history.
For many years, Batman and Superman - especially in the pages of World's Finest, where they teamed up (with Robin) every month - were essentially best friends. They knew each other's secret identities (when almost no one else did). They helped each other out of personal problems, sometimes disguising themselves as each other to deal with secret ID problems. Superman would visit the Batcave; Batman would go to the Fortress of Solitude. (This was at a time when guest-starring, team-ups, and crossing-overs were much more rare than they are today.) They were buddies.
And, with Robin, they formed a sort of family - spending time together, knowing each others' secrets. (Not a homosexual family so much as a homosocial one.) It was as if Robin was being raised by the two of them together.
Now, on top of that, there were a series of stories in which Superman and Jimmy Olsen visited the Bottle City of Kandor, a Kryptonian environment where Superman has no superpowers. Forced for plot reasons to disguise themselves, they take on the roles of Nightwing and Flamebird, very deliberately inspired by Batman and Robin. They even have a Nightcave, and get a dog assistant named called Nighthound. (Later, Kandorians Van-Zee - Superman's identical second cousin! - and Ak-Var take on the roles.)
So: Nightwing is essentially Superman when he's taking on the role of Batman. So when Dick Grayson said that, out of respect for the two of them, he would become Nightwing, I thought: wow. That's perfect!
So the identity always had a strong resonance to me.
Since then, there have been so many retcons and reboots that the history has been lost. Often, in the early stages of a reboot, Batman is shown to be suspicious of Superman (Thanks, Frank Miller!), so Robin doesn't really spend so much time with Superman. When the Dick-chooses-the-name-Nightwing moment is revisited, there is always a vestigial effort to connect the name to Krypton. But exactly who and what on Krypton was called Nightwing has changed frequently, and Dick's choice doesn't usually seem to make the same kind of sense it did originally - it's kind of shoehorned in as an homage or Easter egg more than anything else.
So: all that said, it doesn't mean what it used to. And at this point it would be fine with me if Dick Grayson - dealing with the fact that his old secrets are now widely known - decided to pick a new superhero name altogether. And maybe stop being Dick Grayson, too, and take on an alias. It would make sense.
But DC corporate has so much invested in the intellectual property of the names Dick Grayson and Nightwing that it's very unlikely that they would do anything like that, no matter how much sense it would make in a story. So mind-wiping/evidence-wiping superspy satellite it'll probably be.
But it's worth remembering that they did once have Dick Grayson give up the superhero name that had always been associated with him, and take on an entirely new one. It retrospect, it was a pretty bold thing for DC to do. And at the time: wow.