Asked this over to Reddit, got zero responses. Been wondering since forever when Dick stopped being a nickname for Richard. I’m fifty, remember a few dads when I was a kid who went by Dick. But no one in my age group did, all Rick, Richie, etc. Who is the youngest Dick you know, Dopers?
I am 43. I don’t recall ever knowing anyone who went by Dick.
I’ve wondered this very thing. Any Dicks I’ve known would be in their 70s by now.
This should be investigated, and note should be made when the last Dick dies.
mmm
My Dad is a Dick and a dick… The name definitely suits him (he has good traits too). He’s 69 so that’s the youngest I know. I work with a Richard who just recently turned 60 and he goes by Rick.
I actually don’t think I know any Dicks. I know dicks, but not Dicks.
I do. On top of preferring “Dick”, his last name was Peters. :rolleyes:
I knew a guy named Richard Tate in the military. His troops insisted on referring to him as Dick Tate. I pointed out one drunken night that tete was the French word for head, so Richard Tete would be Dick Head. I’m not sure they got it.
Only one I know is in his 60’s. Actually, it’s his middle name that’s Richard, but Dick’s what he goes by.
Went to high school with at least one Dick. He’d be 59 or so now.
A cousin is married to a man who goes by Dick, but he’s a few years older than I. (Her sister’s husband, incidentally, is Rick.)
The last guy I knew who went by the name Dick was a colleague born around 1940. Several mentioned upthread are younger.
Richard Brodhead, currently president of Duke University was born in 1947. He goes by Dick, or at least did when he was my neighbor here in Connecticut.
I think the OP is on to something here. Checking online, the only two celebrities under fifty I could find that go by the name Dick are Dick Norman at 42 and Dick Togo at 44.
My wife and I were discussing this very thing about an hour ago. We know a guy named Dick, and he’s in his early 60s. We concluded this nickname will die with the baby boomers.
I don’t know how old Dick Wall is but he doesn’t look that old to me.
There’s a somewhat well-known family in my town, and that’s their last name.
Isn’t it a fairly common Dutch first name? And no, it’s not a diminutive of Richard any more than the Dutch Bob is a diminutive of Robert.
There was Dick Sargent of Bewitched fame, but he’s dead. Dick Tracy never gets old, of course.
That Melville novel about the great white whale isn’t going to have its title changed any time soon, either.
Former NBA player Dickey Simpkins is 41.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/simpkdi01.html
Dick Trickle died this year at 71. I know that isn’t what you asked, but I just wanted to say “Dick Trickle.”
The youngest Dick I know is around 60, his last name is Dodick. Dick Dodick.
I guess a related question is, “When did ‘dick’ start to mean ‘dong’?”