Nicknames or " pet names " — shortened forms of stock name — be in every voice communication and every culture date back to the first written track record . In English , some nicknames make perfect signified : Dave for David , Pete for Peter , or Liz for Elizabeth . But others are totally weird : Margaret somehow becomes Peggy , Charles becomes Chuck , and Richard , quite famously , becomes Dick .
There is n’t any overarching reason as to why nicknames develop that seem to make no logical horse sense . But there are some good stories behind some of the them . We reached out to Cleveland Kent Evans — psychology professor , writer of " The Great Big Book of Baby Names",name columnistfor the Omaha World Herald and former chairman of theAmerican Name Society — to clew us in on the surprising origin of some of the most puzzling English nickname . have ’s bulge with a fun one .
Charles to Chuck
Unlike most English nickname , this one does not follow from England . Chuck is an entirely American invention with a colorful backstory . The first famous Chuck was a 19th - century New York City gangster name Chuck Connors , whose given name was George Washington O’Connor , not Charles .
So how did he get the nickname " Chuck " ? Connors grew up in the Chinatown vicinity of Lower Manhattan and even learned enough Chinese to earn him the unofficial claim of " Mayor of Chinatown . " Connors claimed that he got the moniker Chuck because of his love for chuck steak , but Evans has another hypothesis .
" If you look at the 1850 US nose count , which was the first to list full names , almost all the people who had some variation of ' Chuck ' in their given name were Formosan , " says Evans , who cogitate Jimmy Conors more in all probability picked up a nickname from the neighborhood .
When Connor conk out in 1913 , some of the New York papers mistakenly printed his given name as Charles , making the first ( if false ) connection between Charles and Chuck . But since Charles lacked any attention-getting alternative nicknames at the metre , Chuck stuck .
Henry to Hank (and Harry)
Hank is another American nickname , but its origin are murkier . The most likely account , says Evans , is that Hank is descend from Henk , a Dutch nickname for Henry that would have been used by large the communities of Dutch settlers in New York and New Jersey in the 17th and eighteenth centuries .
But more interesting is the fact — little know to most Americans — that the original soubriquet for Henry was Harry . ( Prince Harry ’s real name is Prince Henry of Wales . )
Evans pronounce that Harry is n’t so much a nickname of Henry as a mispronunciation of Henri , the original French flesh of Henry that arrived in England with the eleventh - C Norman Conquest . Since few people could read or pen in Medieval England , they enounce the raw name as best they could , voice more like Harry than Henry .
Richard to Dick
Many of the most common English cognomen can be draw back to Medieval time , when half the adult male in England were named either John or William , and the other half were Robert or Richard . Evans says that inherited surnames did n’t even show up until around 1100 . Before that , the great unwashed used occupation or filiation as last public figure : John the Smith or Robert son of William .
In those days , nickname were essential to keep Richard your neighbour direct from Richard your buddy . A popular trick was to create rhyming names . The original shortened shape of Richard was Rick , which became Hick and Dick .
The letters " H " and " D " were democratic rime consonant , apparently , because the original nickname for Robert was n’t Bob , but or else was Hob or Dob . Bob arrive much after , Evans enounce , but you’re able to still see the original moniker in English surnames like Hobson and Dobson .
William to Bill
Credit the Irish with this one . Evans says that a curiosity of Irish Gaelic will turn a " watt " speech sound into more of a " B " depending on whether the word is the case or object of a sentence . Either way , the first written evidence of a William being call off Bill was in the late seventeenth C when Irishmen mock King William III of England by calling the hat Protestant conqueror " King Billy . "
Margaret to Peggy
The lady also got in on the rhyming act , but get it a step further . In the 1500s , there was a fad for rhyming " M " names with " P. " Here ’s how Evans explain the journey from Margaret to Peggy :
Margaret to Marg to Mag to Meg to Meggy to Peggy .
The same affair occur to the name Martha . It started with the soubriquet Math , which go to Matty , then switched to Patty , and finally Patsy . Thomas Jefferson ’s wife , Martha , was known as Patty . Neither Patsy nor Patty had anything to do with Patricia .
In a final twist , another common byname for Margaret was Daisy . Do n’t even seek to get there using the rhyming method acting . This one was adopted by educated Brits who recognized that the Gallic Scripture for daisy , the flower , was Marguerite .
Sarah to Sally
A few cognomen are assign to baby talking . Little youngster have a notoriously tough clock time pronouncing the missive " R " which often comes out sounding like an " L. " Evans think that ’s the skilful account for the spiritual rebirth of Sarah to Sally and Mary to Molly . ( The rhyming phenomenon also takes Mary from Molly to Polly . )
Anne to Nancy
Some dialects of English used to apply " mine " in place of " my . " That ’s the good speculation as to how we got from Anne to Nancy . It starts with folks articulate " mine Anne , " which got shortened to Nan and cute - ified into Nanny , Nansy and then Nancy .
you may see the " mine " phenomenon with other name that start with a vowel . Edward go from " mine Edward " to " mine male erecticle dysfunction " to Ned . Ellen goes from " mine Ellen " to " mine Elly " to Nelly .
John to Jack
There are a couple of possible explanations for this one , Evans says . The first has to do with a popular " pet " manakin of names from Medieval England where folks added " kin " as a postfix . William was Wilkin . Peter was Perkin . Again , you’re able to still see these moniker today in surnames like Wilkinson and Perkins .
John , Evans says , would have been changed to Jenkin . That could have easily been foreshorten to Jenk which is a flying misstep to Jack .
Another hypothesis head back to the Norman invasion and the arrival of the name Jacques , which is really the French form of James , not John . But the cultural mingling of Jenk and Jacques could have been enough to bring forth Jack from John .
