Randy became horny when he met Sandy, who was handy at the time.
Randall was original a surname, only in recent centuries did it cross over to become a given name… Its the clash with the given name Randall and its common shortening to Randy , that killed the term ‘randy’.
Surely Randolph has been around as a first name much longer than Randall.
What is really somewhat disconcerting to me, as a Brit, is the women in the United States that go by Randy. What is that short for?
In some cases, it’s not short for anything. Their legal name is Randy (or Randi or Randie). In other cases, it’s short for Miranda.
There are a lot of women’s names in the U.S. which are the legal names of those women but which appear to be nicknames that could either be from men’s or women’s names. There’s Bobby, Bobbie, or Bobbi, which could come from either Robert or Roberta; Jamie, which could come from James; Josie, which could come from either Joseph or Josephina; Jackie, which could come from Jack, Jacqueline, or John; etc. If you hear of someone in the U.S. whose first name ends with -y, -ie, or -i and you don’t know what sex they are, they are probably female.
Well that makes it worse! From a British perspective it is tantamount to naming your newborn baby daughter something like “sexpot” or “slut”.
Well, don’t get too upset when driving on a highway in the US you see a huge sign saying “SOD”. That made a Brit friend of mine giggle.
Words have different meanings in different places. I still remember leaning my long-distance backpack against the wall in a burger joint in NZ. When my order arrived, I looked around for what I needed but didn’t see them, so asked for napkins. That got me a funny look and I had to repeat myself a couple times. Finally the girl stared at my pack and said “Ave you go’ a BAIBEE in there?”
That’s when I looked at her like SHE was nuts and said “I’ll need something to wipe my hands.” Aha! They’re called "serviettes. We both had a good laugh about what “napkins” were.
Actually, no. The name “Randy” for a boy peaked in the mid-1940s and precipitously dropped soon there after. It disappeared as a girls name around 1960.
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American here…when I hear the name Randy, I have no thought as to the person’s libidic state.
However, I have no doubts as to the statement’s meaning “He is feeling a bit randy” I think of randy as a word that is used in place of “horny” or some other term meaning in an achingly sexually desirous state.
It is all context. Which I am OK with…
Well, that only measures the children whose given name is (or starts with) “Randy”.
I’d assume that they are hugely eclipsed by the number of Randolphs, Randalls, Mirandas, etc who are familiarly known as “Randy”.
The same applies to all names mentioned except Miranda.
Same here. I don’t think I’ve ever heard any of my American friends use it in conversation, unless they were quoting Austin Powers or something. I’m not even entirely sure I was aware of its meaning as “horny” until late high school or college.
This connection always made sense to me, since I am a native Dutch speaker. “aangerand” is still in use (violated), rand is basically an edge, a border, e.g. randstad, ( Randstad - Wikipedia ) and of course a rant is often endless.
Accosted comes to mind.
See here for the Dutch part:
Only a few clicks away from Happy Lendervedder’s link
I went out for dinner with an English friend of mine visiting the US, and in that inimitable pop restaurant style the waitress approached the table with a big smile and introduced herself: “Hi! I’m Randy and I’ll be your server this evening!” My friend didn’t stop laughing for days.
Also, there have been plenty of people named Peter and Dick and that doesn’t seem to cause a lot of notice.