Nords are what ever you make them. My Nord is an Assassin/spell sword. The original face models are grotesque, but its not hard to make them look as good as any other race.
My first character was annoying little Bosmer archer who I never knew was so adept at killing everything with a single arrow until I checked the difficulty slider. Those were the days.
My first character was a Nord, but I pretty quickly graduated up to Redguards and Bretons in my early OB days. Then. . . somehow I got captured by a darn wood elf.
Dark Elf as a thief, think i did pretty much everything with him, leaving me with a good idea of whats what. Oh to go back to the innocence of my first ever playthrough *reminisces of good times*
My first was an imperial. The two characters I ended up playing for the long haul (and which I still play) are both Nords, a female silver knight and a male ninja.