The youngest Dick I know is about 50. I can’t imagine using that version of Richard. I’d certainly have gone with Rich or Rick.
Banana fanna fo fick?
Reminds me of a joke on Growing Pains. In a flashback we learned that Mike’s friend Boner used to be called Dickie.
So it appears that Dick is right out as a nickname, but some folks (mainly Southern?) seem to feel that Dickie is an appropriate first name, so there are some younger-ish Dickies out there but all Dicks are geriatric. Do I have that right?
My grandfather was a Dick, and he’d be 112 if he were still alive. And one junior-high teacher was a Dick, he must have died of old age by now. So maybe so.
Oooh. A guy I used to work with was called ‘Dick.’ He’s about 61 now. And, there used to be a sports writer for the local paper who, and least in his private life, went by ‘Dick.’ I think his bylines used his full name or initials. He’s probably 59 now.
C’mon, you gotta figure somewhere in Brooklyn there’s a 20-something hipster Richard who goes by Dick ironically.
That’s only partially a joke. I don’t think the name will die out with the Babyboomers. The old fashioned quality of the name will gain charm and be seen as cool.
Bonus that it’s a nickname. It won’t get snuffed out by parents saying “Oh! We can’t name him after your Uncle Dick! He’ll get teased with the name Dick.” No. With the name Richard, some kid in highschool can decide along with his friends that he’ll start going by Dick. I know a Moe who was Maureen until highschool when she and her friends all decided Moe suited her better- it was her parents and siblings who had to relearn what had very much become her standard identifying appellative. I know another person who always went by her middle name because of her ridiculous first name . . . until coming of age, she and her friends decided that the old fashioned charm of her real first name Ethel made it extra cool.
It’s the slang names for penis that will continue to rotate in and out of popularity- I’m encouraging a revival of Johnson. If it weren’t for the popularity of the phrase “Suck my dick”, dick would be seldom used among young people anymore. The current young generation, due to being more internet saavy than their parents, grew up with hardcore porn in their bedrooms (filters, you say? Ha!). They throw the word cock around very casually- “dick” sounds juvenile to them. I’m not saying cultural collective memory is going to lose recollection that dick once meant penis, but there are and will always be many ways to say penis. Dick won’t always keep its place as the most standard term.
Yeah, I know three Richards under, say, 45ish. 2 are Ricks and one’s a Rich. Not a Dick to be found among them.
I can think of three Dicks and they were all dicks. Two of them (including the Tricky one) are surely not alive and the third, who drank the McCarthy kool-aid full strength is just my age (76) since he was a HS classmate. My BIL Richard goes by Ritchie as does his son (my nephew). And someone mention Dick Allen. Yes he broke in as that but soon changed to Ritchie (or Richie). The OP might be on to something. Is "Bob losing out to “Rob”?
I thought about bringing that up, but decided to not hijack the thread. Not many young Bobs, but more go by Rob or even Bert.
I used to know a Dick who was my age or maybe a year or two older, so he’d be around 52 now. Even when I knew him, when we were in our 20s, I couldn’t believe he used it. I will say that within a short span of knowing him, though, you forget his name is DICK and it fades into ordinariness. My high-school boyfriend was named Harry; same deal. Although that name seems to be making a comeback.
I used to have a business contact who went by Dyck. Pronounce like a “dyke”. Not sure which name would get more snickers: “Dick” or “Dyck”.
I do not know any young “Dicks”, but I know plenty of younger adults that go by PETER and WILLY.
Not sure why “Dick” is out of favor while “Peter” and “Willy” are nearly as common slang for penis as “Dick”.
I forgot to mention a large category of “Dicks” listed on IMDb, many of them under 50. They work in an, um, specialized segment of the film industry and I strongly suspect they are all stage names.
Maybe because *dick *is a pejorative term describing someone’s personality, only incidentally related to genitalia.
Some people will try to tell you there’s a difference in pronunciation between “Harry” and “hairy,” but where I grew up in West Texas, there was no difference.
:eek:From Merriam-Webster:
Pronounced to rhyme with ‘merry’ and ‘ferry?’ And “hairy” pronounced as \ˈha-rē\ not listed at all? Color me surprised.
And let’s not forget Roger for our British friends.
Me. I’m 29.
I’m a 4th generation Richard. My dad goes by Dick, and my parents called me Dick/Dicky without really thinking about it when I was young. I entered kindergarten and the name stuck through high school. I switched to Rich/Richie/Richard in college, but I’m still known as Dick to people in my hometown.
Exactly. I first ran into the pejorative use when I entered junior high school (1978). Although it didn’t have quite the same meaning then that it does now, at least at my school. It was used in much the same way as “nerd” was used, but more insulting. As one of the nerdy, unpopular kids, I had to put up with being called a dick a lot, and when I objected, the real dicks would look all innocent and exclaim, “It’s just short for ‘Richard’!”
So the following year I started going by “Rick”, naively thinking it would put an end to that. Nope. It just turned it into a rhyming game, and I became “Rick the dick”.
Heh. There are three generations of men in a certain family at my church: John Sr., John Jr., and the youngest … John Thomas. I’ve always had this urge to pull John Jr. aside and recommend that, if he and his family ever take a trip to England, he avoid addressing his son as “John Thomas”.
Merry ferry hairy mary marry harry dairy fairy scary, all the same. Can’t even hear a difference when people who claim there’s a difference says them.
Though I don’t see why Harry would be a particularly embarrassing name just for sounding like Hairy. Unless your last name is Pitts or something.