# Yankee Doodle

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yankee-doodle/430485>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [December 18, 2007, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yankee-doodle/430485 "2007-12-18T18:57:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![whitebook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b19c9b/32.png) [@whitebook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitebook)\
**Post date:** [December 18, 2007, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yankee-doodle/430485/1 "2007-12-18T18:57:29Z")

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The article on the song “Yankee Doodle” is very good, but a couple of names need clarifying. “Yankee” may be a version of the Dutch nickname “Janke,” meaning Johnny or Jack. “Doodle” is not mysterious; the OED traces it to the 17th century meaning dolt or time-waster, which seems to fit just fine. “Captain Gooding” (with whom father and I went down to camp) is usually sung and pronounced Goodin, which suggests that it may be the much more common New England name “Goodman,” which was pronounced Goodin. Goodman is also what husbands in Puritan New England were called, as in Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown.” (Wives were called “Goodwife,” usually pronounced Goodif and even more usually shortened to Goody.)

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**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\
**Post date:** [December 18, 2007, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yankee-doodle/430485/2 "2007-12-18T19:14:54Z")

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Here’s a link to the staff report: [What’s the song “Yankee Doodle” all about?](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/myankeedoodle.html)

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**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yankee-doodle/430485/3 "2007-12-19T15:34:43Z")

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Godwin or Goodwin would also seem to be likely.

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**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yankee-doodle/430485/4 "2007-12-19T17:23:56Z")

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Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards, **whitebook** , we’re glad to have you with us and hope you stick around and contribute more!

I wrote that Staff Report many years ago; and I didn’t track the origin of “Yankee” since Cecil had already covered it in a 1986 column. I’m not sure whether the current art of etymology has come down more definitely than they had back then, but there were several theories, none of which had irrefutable evidence. Yours are as good as any, and better than most. It’s not uncommon in trying to track down word origins, that the origin is oral and it doesn’t get written down until years later, so that from this late perspective, it’s almost impossible to say what the origin really was.