It’s a corruption of German Theodoric (Theodore).
Franck, Franz, François, Francis, Francisco (with its unexpected diminutive Pancho)
By the way, Severus, Jack is not a diminutive of John. Jaime and James are the Portuguese and English equivalents of French Jacques. James is or was rarely used in French.
Never knew that Gwendolen was Welsh for Jennifer. But both Gwendolen and Geneviève are so beautiful! The last is my daughter’s name - also Gigi. No wonder!
Gigi, I just missed you by 6 minutes!
Do you mean etymologically? Because in practice, Jack is a diminutive of John. Every Jack I’ve ever known is actually John.
Jack =/= Jaques
It goes like this, I believe:
Yohanan -> Johanan -> Jan -> Jankin (dim.) -> Jackin -> Jack
John F. Kennedy was called “Jack” by friends & family.
Jack Nicholson and Jack Lemmon were also both born “John”
On the other hand, Jack L. Warner and Jack Ruby were both Jacobs.
Jack Paar was a Jacques.
Jack Daniel was Jasper.
Jack Nicklaus was born “Jack”
That’s news to me. Jack is the equivalent of French Jacques, and John of Jean. The two are etymogically different, as shown in this thread. But Jack being used as a diminutive for John seems strange. It’s like Mike being used for Peter :). But since you say so… Does anyone have an explaination for this ?
Good explanation Although Jankin an Jackin are hardly used in English, if at all.
Oh! I see now: John Kennedy = Jack. It had always puzzled me.
As an aside…my name is John, but I’ve always kinda wished I’d been nicknamed Jack. It just seems to have more…panache. Every Tom Dick & Harry’s called John (as the song goes), but Jacks are cool.
And is the Irish name Caitlin related to these?
Incidentally that name is properly pronounced something like “Kathleen” (in fact I believe Kathleen is the Anglicised form of the Irish name) but it is increasingly mangled to “Kate-Lynn”. In fact the phonetic spelling seems to be quite common nowadays, especially in the USA.
It would probably be Marie-Luce or Marilou in French.
There are a lot of English diminutives that are outdated today:
Robert - Hob, Nob, Dob, Rab, Hobkin, Robin, Hopkin
Adam - Adkin
Alexander - Sandy
Alfonso - Lonnie
Christopher - Kit
Constantine - Costin
David - Daw, Dawkin
Edward - Ned
Gerald - Ged, Gert
Henry - Hal, Hank, Harry, Harkin
John - Jenk, Jenkin, Jockin, Jock
Nicholas - Colin
Thomas - Tomkin
William - Wilcock, Willet, Willkin
Richard - Dickin
Peter - Perkin
Roger - Hodge, Hodgkin
That’s funny, a few posts before that, someone was saying that
Jacob (shortened form Jake) and James (also seen as Jim or Jimmy) are both used in English, and are equivalent to Jacques, but Jack is not generally related to the similar-sounding Jake, Jacob, or Jacques.
Arabic - يونّا Yuwanna
Armenian - Ohanna
English - Jane, Janet, Jean, Joan, Joann
French - Jeanne, Jeannette
Greek - Ιωαννα Ioanna
Hebrew - יוחנה Yochanah
Irish - Siobhan, Sinéad
Italian - Giovanna
Latin - Joanna, Johanna
Polish - Jana
Portuguese - Joana
Russian - Ивана Ivana
Spanish - Juana
Welsh - Siân
Let’s go on with girls :
Agnès (French)
Inez (I thought it was Ines ?) (Spanish)
Nancy (didn’t know that one ; English)
(from http://www.etymonline.com )
Agnese (Italian)
Agnethe (German)
Annest ; Nesta (Welsh)
Anaïs ; Anniesse (never seen that last one !) (French variants)
Wow, 74 variants !
Ag, Agafi, Agafia, Agafon, Aggi, Aggie, Aggy, Aggye, Aghna, Agi, Agie, Agna, Agnah, Agnella, Agnellah, Agnelle, Agnese, Agness, Agnessa, Agnesse, Agneta, Agnethe, Agnetta, Agnettah, Agnie, Agnieszka, Agnola, Agnolah, Agnus, Agot, Agota, Agote, Agoti, Agy, Agye, Aigneis, Ainah, Anaïs, Anessa, Anis, Anise, Anissa, Annais, Annest, Anneyce, Annice, Anniesse, Annis, Annisa, Annisah, Annise, Ina, Inah, Ines, Inessa, Inez, Nessa, Nessah, Nesi, Nessie, Nessy, Nesta, Nestah, Nevsa, Nevesah, Neysa, Oona, Oonagh, Oonah, Senga, Una, Unah, Ynes and Ynez.
(from Babynames ; great website !)
Ginebra in Spanish.
This is an Arabic name; maybe in French usage it became assimilated to some of those variants of Agnès, I don’t know. In Arabic, أنيسة anîsah literally means a woman who is nice to be around. (Coincidentally, an old friend named Anisah just got back in contact with me after several years.) أنائس Anaïs is the broken plural of this word in Arabic.
Yes, the current spelling is Inés. It’s sometimes found as Inez in old texts or as written by people who say the “z” as “s” and who “overcorrect”: they say S but think ‘no, no, it can’t be an s, I’m sure it’s got to be a z’ so they write a Z… when it actually should be an S. I once met a Casilda who wrote it Cazilda, because of this overcorrection.
Gonzales is of Portuguese origin; González is from Spain. Both mean “son of Gonzalo”. Cortés means “polite, well bred” and is a commonish Spanish lastname; the only time I see it as Cortez is in copies of old texts or by people referring to Hernan… who are overcorrecting due to the influence of the “son of” lastnames (López, Martínez, González, Díez). Cortez, under current spelling rules, would mean “son of Corto” and the only Corto ever baptized that is a Hugo Pratt comic book character
Marie-Lu I’m told.
The name is very common in a specific part of Spain; it moved over to both French and English through ladies in waiting of Spanish-born Queens. They didn’t ask “how do you spell it” but simply wrote it down in a way that “sounded like…”
I had a cousin’s friend named like this, I’ve never seen her name written, but “Marie-Lou” is the way I would have written it…
There is in France a quite famous song by a singer called Polnareff, and the title of the song is “Goodbye Marylou” (another orthograph !). The lyrics are in French, and talking about a virtual relationship (via Minitel, Internet’s ancestor)