Here's my take on sign variants (regional signs etc) meaning multiple signs for a single gloss meaning.
I think we sometimes thing of variation as a bad thing ... ASL students certainly seem overwhelmed - but actually it's a really GOOD thing. It's a sign that ASL is alive and well ... that it's growing and maturing naturally as a language.
Before people were able to travel around as easily or communicate across wide areas (video phone etc) ASL (as with all languages who develop in semi-isolation) was much more regionalised, as new words were needed ( for technology etc) the local group came up with a sign... used it, accepted it, but was aware that it would be regional.
As the ASL community has become more "North American" individually we're exposed to more regional signed because people travel around more - there's the internet and video phone ... we "see" more differences in our language than we had in the past.
Within Canada there are at least 4 "regions" for Sign - within these there are regional variants because they draw from different historical sign languages ... ASL, LSQ, LSF, BSL etc. because of that we see different signs for things like "OFFICE" or "HOSPITAL" - however theres something interesting that happens as well ... as we interact with the regions sometimes a preference for a sign is found (4 sign choices, becomes 1) ...
It's kind of like when the Canadian $2bill was replaced with a coin ... at first the new coin had many different (spoken, not signed) names "twoonie","toonie","bearback","duece""doub-loon","two-piece" etc ... but with usage we came to call it a "toonie" ... the regional wording because national.
Anyways ... as the North American ASL community continues to mature, we see more continuity - it happens naturally as we see and adopt ASL knowledge from various Schools (Def schools, Colleges etc) as well as Coastal differences, and even Ethnic variations (we see this happen with country and state/city signs too). There used to be a million different signs for "email" (I still fingerspell it, but I'm not the "norm") ... but through usage we see more standardization now.
Now all that being said - regionalization can be frustrating ( just like in english ... is it a shopping cart, a buggy, a trolly, a cart, a pushcart? and ALL those are just in the USA) but I always smile when I see the regional signs ... it shows that we're growing ... that ASL is developing in a natural, healthy way - and THAT is a wonderful thing to see !!!
P.S. just to add an odd personal quirk into the mix ... I sign birthday as "BORN+DAY" except if I only have one hand free ( usually due to holding cake, soda etc while signing happy birthday) If I only have one had free I flip to the birthday sign that starts like "FAVORITE" ~ no real reason other than it's more suited to single handed signing ... LOL
