Common Illogical Nicknames

William ---> Bill
Robert ---> Bob
James ----> Jim

SHOULD just always be Will, Rob, Jamie

Adding completely new letters makes no sense and I'm tired of taking this nonsense passively.

Think of more so we can change them, I know they're out there.

 

Richard--->Dick

 

Christopher --> Kit
Elizabeth --> Libby

 

Paul --> Big Bird
John --> Jack

 

Lewis--->Scooter

 

yeah, "jack" for John, I mean WT*, srsly.

 

Kakay-Kango for Emma. That's always confused me...

 

I used to think that Jack and John were two different names altogether. For me, a familiar/affectionate version of John is always Johnny.

 

Try Margaret --> Peggy
Mary --> Polly
Sarah --> Sally



Once upon a time, there just weren't that many names in circulation in English-speaking countries, and people had to do something to distinguish the 75 Marys in their village.

Some weird nicknames come from old-fashioned or dialectal pronunciations of names--Jemmie/Jimmy used to make as much sense as Jamie. Others most likely came from children's inability to pronounce their own names. "R" commonly gets replaced by "L," or else a child simplifies a name by repeating a consonant--such as swapping in the "easy" B for the difficult R in Robert. Ask any 2-year-old Robert what his name is, and he will tell you: Bobbert.

The hard R in "Mary" gets turned into L: "Molly." The "Polly" variation seems to have been the result of playing with the sound to make the name cuter. Ditto with Margaret --> Meg --> Peg --> Peggy. (No, I don't know why P is cute. I also don't know for sure whether we got "Bill" from "William" in a similar way, but I suspect we did.) "Sally" is just "Sarah" with an L/R substitution and a diminutive -y at the end.

Oh, and John --> Jack by way of a very old pronunciation, "Jan," attached to a similarly old diminutive suffix: -kin. (We still sort of use "kin"--"Johnnykins" is an obvious "baby name" variation of John, although it sounds sort of stupid.) I will let Terr_Mys explain about the sonority hierarchy and why the "n" in "Jankin" got dropped rather than the "k." Anyway, Jakin --> Jack.

More recent "import" names don't generally have so many mutations in English, although they might in their original language. The French have "Fifi" for Josephine, while we're stuck with the rather obvious "Jo," "Josie," etc. How kicked-around a name gets seems to depend on how many centuries people have had to abuse it, and how outrageously common it once was. Now, parents who want to be "different" can just name their child Apple or Rumer or something--they don't have to call her Mary and then twist that into an abomination of logic like "Polly."

Oh, incidentally, I can explain Chaz for Charles--"Chas." used to be a common written abbreviation--but I can't explain "Chuck."

Therefore I can understand Jack Bauer, but not Chuck Norris. This should please some fans of somebody somewhere.

/This post was brought to you by the tl;dr society of the JCC.

 

Also, blubeast -----> Blu

I mean seriously, the hell?


-BeastoftheWonderland-

 

Oh, yeah--that's what I meant.

 

Richard Assman.

 

That was actually very interesting. Where did you learn all that?

 

Historical re-creation. Finding and verifying names that are accurate for a time period is a minor preoccupation.

FWIW, I'm pretty sure "Polly" and "Peg" are both fairly late--like circa 1800. "Jack" has been around forever.

I don't have any research materials on me, though, so don't quote me.

 

FlareStorm => Flarebottom

 

(a) doesn't that add an 'i' as a new letter, which is exactly what Jim does?
(b) Jamie is two syllables, James is one, so it's not even a shorter name to say!
(c) YOU'RE full of nonsense!

 

Roger - Clint

 

This 'y' thing is way too popular.

Allegra --> Leggy.

 

Katherine - Kitty

Granted if you shorten Katherine you get Kat as in "cat" and a baby cat is a kitty.

 

Gloria = Corndog

 

Charles->Chip



Yea, I cant get that one at all...

 

Yes, it does make it longer to say. I never said nicknames were necessarily to shorten the name. They are sometimes used as "cute" terms of endearment and familiarity.

 

Ed => Eddie

 

Jesus --> Hay Seuss

 

ApolloSmileGirl => Juli