Nicknames with no relation to the longer name.

Factual Questions
1

Most nicknames (which I’m using here to mean a shortened form of a given name) are pretty obvious what name they are short for – Matt for Matthew, Dave for David, Nick for Nicklaus, and so forth.

But some have never made sense to me. For example how did Dick become a nickname for someone named Richard? Rick or Rich make sense, and I assume these are more modern forms of the name, but Dick doesn’t even start with the same letter. How did that name originate?

Likewise, how did Jack become a nickname for John? It’s not even shorter. I honestly didn’t even figure out that Jack and John were the “same” name until I was in college. It took me a long time to realize that the famous “You’re no Jack Kennedy” line from the 1988 Vice Presidential debate was referring to John F. Kennedy. I assumed Jack Kennedy was some other member of the Kennedy family.

Those are the only two I can think of, but are there any other shortened names that don’t sound like the longer form of the name?

2

Dick as a nickname for Richard is because people would use Rick as a nickname for Richards and at some point English really went hard for rhyming and people started using Dick since it rhymed with Rick and it stuck.

Jack for John is because when the Latin Johannes got dutchified, it became Jan. The diminutive -kin was often added to make Jankin which got nasalized to Jackin and then the -in got dropped. Because people could trace the name back to the Johannes which had also arrived in English as John, they were able to associate the two with each other.

3

Ednatha -> Teddi (this one may be unique to my particular acquaintance), but Margaret -> Peg is a common one I’ve never understood.

4

Inner Stickler beat me to this, but I’ll post it anyway since it has a link.

According to this,the evolution of Jack from John was via the following path:

Johannes (Latin) > Jehan (Old and Middle French) > Jan > Jankin (with the addition of the Old English diminutive suffix -kin) > Jackin > Jack

I’m not sure if they actually have the same origin as Rick/Dick but other “rhyming” nicknames include Ted for Edward, Bill for William, and Peggy for Margaret (Meggy).

5

The Wikipedia article on the name Jack also suggests a few other origins, including:

  • There was a medieval name, Jankin, which was a diminutive of John
  • It may have come from the French name Jacques

Back to the OP: the example that I think of is Peg/Peggy as a nickname for Margaret.

6

Margaret is shortened to Marg. Non-rhotic dialects hear Marg as Mag and then the a changed to an e around 1300 to make Meg. Then it’s the same principle as Dick where rhyming was cool and Peg happened to stick.

7

As Colibri’s link suggests, we would need evidence of writers using Jack as a nickname for Jacques and there’s no evidence of that. It doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen, but we can’t demonstrate it.

8

Per my link:

9

Depends what your threshold is for “doesn’t sound like”. The more highly a name is contracted, the more sounds will be dropped or modified. YMMV with Henriette -> Ketty, Alexander -> Sasha, Aikaterina -> Katyusha …

10

I learned something today!

11

Here’s a Mental Floss article that hits the major ones. (Dick/Richard, Bill/William, Hank/Henry, Jack/John, Chuck/Charles, Peggy/Margaret, Ted/Edward, Harry/Henry, Jim/James, Sally/Sarah.)

12

This is a very straightforward matter.

In Anglo-Saxon culture it was very common to create a diminutive by changing the beginning of a name as well as the end.

Robert - Rob - Dob - Nob - Hob

Richard - Rich - Rick - Dick

Edward - Ed - Ned - Ted

Roger - Rodge - Hodge

Mary - Molly - Polly

Sarah - Sally

Margaret - Marge - Meg - Peg

So you’re aware that nicknames can be formed by adding a “y” as in John - Johnny

Another way of creating a diminutive was with “kin”

John - Johnkin - Jackin - Jack

13

Jacques is Jacob/James, not John

14

There are a couple of interesting ones in Spanish.

The nickname for Jose is Pepe. One theory is that this is derived from referring to San Jose/St. Joseph as the “Pater Putativus,” putative father, of Jesus. The abbreviation PP is pronounced as Pepe in Spanish. Less imaginatively it has been derived from the form Josepe of Jose, duplicating the last syllable of the name. (Similarly Guiseppe becomes Peppe in Italian.)

The nickname for Francisco is Pancho. St. Francis of Assisi was the founder of the Franciscan order, and was hence known as the “Pater Comunitas,” father of the community. Paco is an acronym of the first letters of the two words, and later became Pancho.

15

Margaret can also be shortened to “Daisy”, which comes from translating the French version of the name (Marguerite) into English.

16

I’ve never heard the Giuseppe explanation before, but I must say that I find more plausible than the “Pater Putativus” one.

The current Pope is sometimes jokingly referred to as “Papa Pancho” :stuck_out_tongue:

17

Penelope = “Bunty”. “The Honourable Penelope (Bunty) Windermere”

18

Actually, I do too. The “Padre Putativo” explanation sounds like a joke.:slight_smile:

Then there’s “Concha” as short for Concepcion, which I understand has some unfortunate connotations in Argentina.:smiley:

19

My MIL was named Maureen and called Molly. I am Robert but called Bob. The Queen is named Elizabeth but always known in the family as Lilibet.

20

That’s a nickname for a specific person. It’s not a nickname for Penelope. That’s like saying Groucho is a nickname for Julius or Harpo is a nickname for Arthur.:wink: