# Nicknames with no relation to the longer name. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 25, 2019, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623 "2019-07-25T16:56:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623/41 "2019-07-26T13:45:05Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Makes me think of the Kennedy men. John to Jack, Robert to Bobby, and Edward to Teddy. How did the last one evolve? I can see Theodore to Teddy, but Edward? If you’d read the thread, you’d know. > [@](#): > > And show did Stacy, originally a nickname for Anastasia, become a man’s name? I suspect that Stacy as a name for men would be derived from Anastasius or Eustacius or another -stasius name. ---
**Author:** ![Turble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Turble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turble)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623/42 "2019-07-26T13:50:35Z")
I’ve known several men named “Shirt”. All of them have actually been named some variation of Steve or Steven or Stephen. ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623/43 "2019-07-26T13:55:27Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > If you’d read the thread, you’d know. > > I suspect that Stacy as a name for men would be derived from Anastasius or Eustacius or another -stasius name. Yeah, the two male Stacys I’ve met (not related to each other) were really Eustaces. ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623/44 "2019-07-26T14:43:36Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > 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. In Switzerland Joseph becomes “Seppi”, but the name Joseph isn’t used so often anymore, so if you hear “Seppi’s will be here in a few minutes”, expect to see an older man. My coworker Francisco uses Paco. Glad to learn how that came about. I had a schoolmate who went by Missy. She was Mary something, her mother was Mary something else and her grandmother was Mary yet something different, and she didn’t like being called Mary something. She has since changed her name. No Missy or Mary. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623/45 "2019-07-26T22:04:33Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > One that I have never figured out is that Italian- Americans of a certain age named “Vincent” go/went by “Jimmy”. Anyone know why? My grandfather from Sicily was baptized Vincenzo. When he immigrated to America he changed his name to James. (My grandmother called him Jimmy). It was explained to me that James was the English equivalent for Vincenzo, but no one ever explained _why_. When I grew up I met another woman whose father had immigrated from Sicily and changed his name from Vincenzo to James. We agreed that it was a thing, but again, neither of us had any idea why. Finally out of lifelong frustration I took to Google, determined not to quit until I’d found the answer. I found it. A shortened form of Vincenzo was Cenzo, which had a variant “Censo.” Censo, in Italian pronunciation, was thought to sound similar enough to “James” to be replaced by it. Now I want to tell the world. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623/46 "2019-07-27T03:29:19Z")
I always assumed my mother’s name was Elizabeth, and she was just called Betty for short. I think I was 50 before I realized that was her actual name. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623/47 "2019-07-27T05:24:31Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > 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. It wouldn’t need to be a nickname, it could be a transcription. Someone French was named Jacques (pronounced /jak/) and someone wrote it in English as “Jack” (pronounced /jak/). But there doesn’t need to be any document which refers to that Jacques with any indication that he was French and that he was the same dude referred to in other documents as Jack. Dick could involve a little kid. When they’re about 3, the kind of sounds that usually get written with r, l, d cause them a lot of trouble. Kid was trying to say Rick, it sounded to adult ears more like Dick… PP and PaCo (previously explained by **Colibri** ) were and still often are written on their respective statues, usually on the base. It’s not that “Saint Joseph was referred to in speech as the supposed father of Jesus” but that “people could identify certain statues of a man in brown robes carrying the Child as being St Joseph and not any of the many other male saints who often get represented with the Child and in brown robes by the two letters PP clearly written on the base of the statue”. Quick: how many of you know, without looking it up, what does IBM stand for? And how many of you know which company it refers to? Lots of people didn’t know that “PP” stood for “Pater Putativus”, but they did know it meant “San José”. Jesús -\> Chus (commonish in Northern Spain) -\> Chuy, in some parts of Latin America with heavy influence from Northern Spain. ---
**Author:** ![Cugel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cugel/32/1199_2.png) [@Cugel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cugel)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623/48 "2019-07-27T08:15:17Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I should point out that “Jack” is not always a nickname. Very common given name in Australia. My dad was William, which got shortened to Jack (?), his next door neighbour then unpacked it back to John. So William = John. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623/49 "2019-07-27T08:56:01Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > I always assumed my mother’s name was Elizabeth, and she was just called Betty for short. I think I was 50 before I realized that was her actual name. I had a neighbor who was an attorney named Larry. Not Lawrence, it was Larry. The entire law firm was littered with IIs and IIIs and proper WASPish names, and he was the Larry. It didn’t matter that at the time there was a president known as “Jimmy;” he hated having to correct everyone. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623/50 "2019-07-27T13:03:05Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > I always assumed my mother’s name was Elizabeth, and she was just called Betty for short. I think I was 50 before I realized that was her actual name. My mom had a friend named Betty; one teacher kept insisting she was Elizabeth. Betty’s mom had to go to the school to set her straight. The teacher apparently still couldn’t understand how such a thing was even possible, but apparently the principal got the idea. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623/51 "2019-07-27T13:42:10Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > My mom had a friend named Betty; one teacher kept insisting she was Elizabeth. Betty’s mom had to go to the school to set her straight. The teacher apparently still couldn’t understand how such a thing was even possible, but apparently the principal got the idea. I can maybe get how people wouldn’t understand this is some parts of the country. But I live in NYC - where every day immigrants are choosing names for their children. And a lot of them are choosing names they have encountered in their lives\* - which may mean “Mike” instead of “Michael” , “Betty” instead of “Elizabeth” and so on. And still people insist that my husband’s name must be “Daniel” - If I lived in Spain, I might know people called " Paco" and give my son that name- but until this thread, I had no idea it was a diminutive for Francisco. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623/52 "2019-07-27T13:58:46Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > And still people insist that my husband’s name must be “Daniel” Dan was a name in its own right long before Daniel became a name, if the Old Testament is any clue. The Japanese name Ken (e.g. Ken Watanabe, who played Saito in _Inception_) is likewise a name in its own right, not shortened from Kenneth. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623/53 "2019-07-27T14:01:07Z")
Sarah \> Sadie is another example of sound shift. In many languages intervocalic /d/ and /r/ have a way of slipping into each other. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623/54 "2019-07-27T14:10:11Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Dan was a name in its own right long before Daniel became a name, if the Old Testament is any clue. Thought I mentioned his name is “Danny” - he might have had less trouble if it was “Dan”. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623/55 "2019-07-27T14:41:55Z")
In those cases I don’t see that there’s any need for tension. “Elizabeth” is just something that some people call “Betty,” or “Daniel” is something that some people call someone named “Danny” that is, a nickname. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623/56 "2019-07-27T15:32:37Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > In those cases I don’t see that there’s any need for tension. “Elizabeth” is just something that some people call “Betty,” or “Daniel” is something that some people call someone named “Danny” that is, a nickname. No, it’s not the same because it’s not a matter in those cases of someone simply \*calling \*them by a nickname that they dislike/don’t use. No teacher has ever told “Elizabeth” that her name is really “Betty” and no employer has made “Daniel’s” paycheck out to “Danny”, causing problems at the bank. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623/57 "2019-07-27T17:55:46Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > - If I lived in Spain, I might know people called " Paco" and give my son that name- but until this thread, I had no idea it was a diminutive for Francisco. Going a bit off-topic – but I’ve always loved the thing (which I believe I got from a post by **Nava** on this message board) about how in pre-mid-1970s Spain: citizens who were somewhat less than passionate devotees of the Head of State, Francisco Franco; were wont to call him, among themselves, _Paco Rana_ = “Frankie the Frog”. This because of his perceived obsession with water-conservation doings of all kinds – it seemed that almost every week, the news media gave copious coverage to his ceremonially inaugurating a new reservoir, or something similar. (Actually, in a water-poor land that would seem to make good sense.) ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623/58 "2019-07-27T18:41:16Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > No, it’s not the same because it’s not a matter in those cases of someone simply \*calling \*them by a nickname that they dislike/don’t use. No teacher has ever told “Elizabeth” that her name is really “Betty” and no employer has made “Daniel’s” paycheck out to “Danny”, causing problems at the bank. Meh. I have a name that people get wrong because they’re unfamiliar with it. A lot of people have to go through bureaucratic rigamarole to get bank transactions, prescriptions, etc., corrected. This is just a problem of life. It’s not something uniquely worrisome because of a societal problem of some kind. Some people’s names get screwed up. That’s life. As for the teacher, it’s bizarre for someone to say “this is actually your name, not that,” but that’s the teacher’s problem. Kids face much worse things all the time from teachers, including someone like me with a “foreign” name. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623/59 "2019-07-27T19:19:57Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > 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. Cool! ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623/60 "2019-07-27T19:22:18Z")
Daniel, BTW, is simply the name of the tribe with the word El, one of the “names” of God. Cf. Rafael, Israel, Immanuel, etc. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nicknames-with-no-relation-to-the-longer-name/837623.md?page=4)