Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Nicknames

Episode Date: May 8, 2019

What's in a nickname? Sometimes they make sense, sometimes they don't. Let's get our shorty on and find out the deal.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck, there's Josh, and this is short stuff, like I said.

Your nickname is Josh. Which is short for Joshua. That makes sense. It does, almost boringly so. Your nickname is Chuck, which is short for Chuck. No, it's short for Charles. Yeah, that's what kind of got me onto this. I realized I sort of never knew how Chuck came from Charles,

and there are a lot of examples of names that we're gonna go through right now that don't quite make sense, and there are some interesting and murky stories behind a lot of these. Well, let's start with yours, with Chuck. I always thought Chuck was short for Chuck Chuck Bo Buck. But it's not, it's short for Charles.

But it doesn't really make sense. I mean, there is the C-H that, you know, you're like, well, okay, they're associated in that way. That's about it though. But it turns out that the story behind how Chuck got associated with Charles is one of the most fascinating convoluted stories that anyone's ever come up with.

And unlike most nicknames for English language names, it does not come from England, or even from the UK or Europe. It comes from America, specifically the Lower East Side of New York in Chinatown, where there was a guy named George Washington O'Connor, who came to be known as the first Chuck.

Chuck O'Connor, or just Chuck Connors. Yeah, and not the Chuck Connors, the actor. The rifleman. Yeah, that's a little confusing, but this was a gangster. He grew up in Chinatown, and this is how the story goes, you know, we weren't there. Hung out in Chinatown a lot by growing up there,

obviously, and became known as a mayor of Chinatown. And he says that he got the name Chuck because he loved Chuck steak. And everyone else said, that's not true, man. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, he's the guy, he should know. But other people have pointed to the 1850 census in the US, where if you look at those names and you pick out the Chucks, or the variations of Chuck,

they were Chinese. He's in Chinatown, variations of Chuck in Chinatown. And so basically, when he dies, they misprint his name as Charles. He never wants Charles. No, it was George. So it was just basically a big mistake. I'm a big mistake.

Well, your nickname is, that's all. Yeah. Not a bad one. Not bad. How about another? How about Hank? Hank is short for Harry, or Henry, right? Yeah, weird, but this one makes more sense. It does.

It's actually pretty straightforward. Hank, H-E-N-K is actually the Dutch name for Henry. Right. And so back in the 16th, 17th, 18th century, again around New York with all the Dutch settlers, they would have called somebody whose name was Henry, Hank, H-E-N-K, which eventually became Hank. Pretty boring, until you realize

that the original nickname for Henry wasn't Hank, but among English speakers, it was Harry. So much so that Prince Harry, his real name is actually Prince Henry, which I had no idea until today, yesterday. Same here. This one is super interesting, because I've often pondered,

how does a Richard become a dick? And this one kind of goes back to medieval times when basically there were kind of like four names. You were John, William, Robert, or Richard. And then there was always like, Serge over in the corner. But it was basically those four names, more or less. And so it got really confusing.

And so nicknames became really popular, so you could sort out your Richards, and your Roberts, and your Johns, and your Williams. Yeah, because not only did they all have the same first name, people didn't have last names by that time yet. It was just so confusing back then. It really was.

So people started coming up with rhyming names, where the first letter would be different, right? You had to make sure you were killing the right guy. Right, exactly. Right, so Richard has always had the shortened form of Rick, basically. But because you might know seven ricks, you might also call one of them hick or dick,

because rhyming names and switching letters with an H or a D was very, very popular, back when people had absolutely nothing to do, but farm and then die. So they would come up with stuff like this. So the original nickname for Richard was hick, at first, from what I understand. Yeah, the same for Robert.

Robert wasn't Bob at first, it was Dobb or Hobb. And then Bob came along much later for the same reason. Yeah, and actually, you can see this, there are people walking around with the last names of Hobb's son, or Dobb's son. Son of Hobb. That would be the son of a Bob, or a Robert, who is nicknamed Hobb or Dobb,

by the people again who had nothing to do with their time. All right, this is getting really confusing, so we're gonna take a quick break, and come back and talk about Williams and Margaret's and Sarah's and Ann's and John's. Right after this. On the podcast, HeyDude, the 90s called David Lasher, and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show,

HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends,

and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist?

So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll wanna be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to HeyDude, the 90s,

called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing.

Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear.

And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so, my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy, teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step.

Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass

on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Okay, Chuck, William DeBille seems pretty straightforward. Will, Bill, it rhymes, but apparently that's not the story behind it. If you go into the Irish Gaelic dialect, which is probably a form of Celtic, if you'll remember from the Druid episode,

if you look at the letter W, you would typically want to say W, but no, it actually makes a B sound. And so when William the Conqueror headed into Ireland in the late 17th century, he was not very well liked. And so the local people who spoke Irish Gaelic saw that William and called him Billy. Instead of Willie, they called him Billy.

King Billy. King Billy was the first Bill, and that's how Bill became the nickname for William. But how does a Bill become a law? On Capitol Hill, it just hangs around. Ladies, we haven't forgotten about you. Peggy is a nickname for Margaret, which this is where things get really interesting

with the rhymes. Yeah, if you weren't interested before, prepare to be finally in this episode. Because apparently in the 1500s and the 16th century, there was another fad for rhyming M names with P names. So this is how it goes timeline-wise. Margaret becomes Marge, that becomes Mag, or Mag, I guess. That becomes Meg, eventually that becomes Meggy, perhaps.

And then that becomes Peggy. Yep, Meggy, Peggy. And they say that that's the lineage, or not the lineage, but you know. What's the word I'm looking for? The, well, the lineage, I think that works. Yeah. The etymology, the evolution.

Yeah, the evolution, there you go. Okay. That thing. Here's another one for Margaret. So did you know that Daisy is a nickname for Margaret? I had never heard that. I hadn't either, which makes zero sense until you start speaking French.

And you find out that Marguerite is the word for the flower Daisy. And so some English speakers who were pretty full of themselves said, we're gonna start calling Margaret's daisies. Okay, I'll buy that. I love it. Martha would turn into math or math.

Eventually that would become Maddie, and then Patty, and then Patsy. So Patsy is apparently still a nickname for Martha. Did not know that one. I did not know that either. So my favorite of all is Anne to Nancy. Yeah, I like this one too, actually. So instead of like calling, saying something was my,

am why people would say mine, and they would speak affectionately of people, or I guess possessively of people, by saying like mine, Anne, right? And then because people don't like to expend a lot of energy, that got shortened to Nan, my Nan, Nan, right? Then Nan got kind of changed and dolled up to Nanny, and then Nancy, and then finally Nancy.

So Nancy is a nickname for Anne. And the same thing also applies to like Ned, Nelly. Any English name that begins with a vowel could be changed from mine, Ed, to Ned pretty easily. There's one apparently ascribed to baby talk. Or attributed to, I guess I should say. Sure. Sarah, apparently some kids have problems

pronouncing the letter R, it'll sound like an L. So Sarah somehow makes the leap to Sally because of kids. I guess, have you ever heard Sally as a nickname for Sarah? No. I always thought Sally was just, that was just the name you were born with. Yeah.

Or maybe it was short for Salsa. Well, you know. My daughter started making up nicknames for her ghost friends, which I guess are imaginary friends. And it's funny to see her just come up with these names, because one of them is Salsa. Oh really, that's awesome. Yeah, there's Osee, Salsa, Fossil, Andy,

CSAW, and CU. She loves the siblings, huh? Yeah, I mean, it's all sort of, you know, she's working it out. You're like, it's all in good fun. It is, but now like I referenced Salsa or Fossil or Osee. And she's like, yeah, they're right over there. And then I laugh, but part of me goes,

is my house haunted? Right. As long as they're not telling her to burn things, I think you're okay. My oldest sister had imaginary friends and they were named Bobby Teek and Peek. Bobby Teek and Peek? Was it Bobby Teek is one name or they were three people?

There were three people. So there must be something to that. Yeah. Alliteration. And I think so. All right, let's finish up with John and Jack being a nickname for John. Cause I always, when I first heard that,

I think it was in the presidential debates when, who was it that said you're no Jack Kennedy? Lloyd Benson. Yeah, I remember hearing that and being like, who the heck is Jack Kennedy? I think he meant John. And then I found out it was a nickname and I never quite got that until yesterday.

Yeah, which is weird because nicknames are usually shortened names. This is just two four letter names, John and Jack. But yeah, Jack is a nickname for John and there's a couple of theories. One is an easy one that goes back to the Norman invasion where the French would have brought the name Jacques over. That makes sense.

That people were like, oh, Jacques, Jack, you know, makes sense. The problem is, is that Jacques is the French name for James, not John. So there's a little bit of a hole in that one. Yeah, the other is, again, in medieval England, sometimes you would add K-I-N, Ken as a suffix. So William was Wilkin, Peter was Perkin,

which is how you get things like, again, Wilkin's son or Perkins. And apparently John became Jinkin and Jinkin was shortened to Jink, which became Jack. I think really this just demonstrates no one knows where Jack came from. I think so. So there you go.

Hopefully your name was in there. If it wasn't, you can make up your own nickname. It's cool. Go ahead and let us know what it is. Find us somewhere on social or via email. Who knows, but we leave it up to you to determine which route to take. In the meantime, we're out of here with our short stuff.

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