Beatniks and Sputniks and Niks at Nite

[Exapno_Mapcase]

The Online Etymology Dictionary gives the history of the suffix “nik” and shows its use :

as in beatnik, etc., suffix used in word formation from c.1945, from Yiddish -nik (cf. nudnik “a bore”), from Rus. -nik, common personal suffix meaning “person or thing associated with or involved in” (cf. kolkhoznik “member of a kolkhoz”). Rocketed to popularity with sputnik (q.v.).

Is 1945 really the oldest written attestation?

In the chapter on Jewish immigration in A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America, Ronald Takaki wrote:

The Yiddish Daily Forward noted that Jews enjoyed giving presents at Christmastime and that this practice was “the first thing” that demonstrated that was not a “greenhorn.” For many newcomers, the goal was to become an “allrightnik.”

No date, no cite, no footnote. But the period he’s talking about is the first quarter of the 20th century, long before 1945.

I searched Google Books and found in Consumption: critical concepts in the social sciences, Volume 2 By Daniel Miller that he quotes a 1921 study by Robert Park and Herbert Miller saying that the two stereotypes of Jewish and Italian immigrants were the “allrightnik” and the “cafone,” the former an assimilator and the latter not.

Meshuggenary: celebrating the world of Yiddish By Payson R. Stevens, Charles M. Levine, Sol Steinmetz says that allrightnik was one of the first “nik” endings, along with “holdupnik.” [!]

Any other pre-1945 sightings?

[RealityChuck]

The OED has “nogoodnik” from 1936. Going from there, it gives these cites for the suffix:

@OED

{alpha} 1905 Amer. Hebrew 22 Dec. 105 More educated than the ‘yellow’ customer peddlers and realestatenicks of earlier years. 1919 H. L. MENCKEN Amer. Lang. 156 The suffix -nick, signifying agency, is..freely applied. Allrightnick means an upstart, an offensive boaster… Consumptionick means a victim of tuberculosis. 1928 L. WIRTH Ghetto xii. 249 There is the Lodgenik, or joiner.

Even earlier, “norodnik” is cited from the Russian in 1885. There is a cite for Raskolnik (a dissenter from the Russian Orthodox Church) in 1723.

There are two sources: Yiddish and Russian. The earliest usages were Russian, then the Yiddish usage took over. After Sputnik, the suffix had a revival.