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Short Stuff: Nicknames · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: there's Josh, and this is short stuff. Like I said,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: your nickname is Josh, which is short for Joshua, and
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: that makes sense. It does almost boringly. So your nickname
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: is Chuck, which is short for Chuck. Now it's short
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: for Charles. Yeah. That's what kind of got me onto this.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I realized I sort of never knew how Chuck came
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: from Charles. And there are a lot of examples of
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: names that, uh, we're going to go through right now
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: that don't quite make sense, and there are some interesting
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: and murky stories behind a lot of these. Well let's
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: start with yours. Look, Chuck, I always thought Chuck was
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: short for Chuck Chuck bo Buck, but it's not. It's
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: it's short for Charles. But it doesn't really make sense.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, there is the ch that that you know,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: you're like, well, okay, there's so see it in that way.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: That's about it, though, But it turns out that the
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: story behind how Chuck got associated with Charles is one
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: of the most fascinating, convoluted stories that anyone's ever come
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: up with, And unlike most nicknames for English language names. Um.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: It does not come from England or even from the
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: UK or Europe. Comes from America, specifically the Lower East
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Side of New York, in Chinatown, where there was a
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: guy named Um George Washington O'Connor who came to be
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: known as the first Chuck, Chuck O'Connor, org just Chuck Connors, Yeah,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: and not the Chuck Connors, the actor of the Yeah,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: that's a little confusing, but this is a gangster. He
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: grew up in Chinatown, and this is how the story goes.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: You know, we weren't there. Um hung out in Chinatown
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: a lot by growing up there obviously, and became known
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: as a mayor of Chinatown. And he says that he
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: got the name Chuck because he loved Chuck Steak, and
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: everyone else said that's not true. Man. Yeah, I mean
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know. He's the guy he should know, but
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: other people appointed to the eighteen fifty census in the
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: US where if you look at those names and you
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: pick out the Chucks or the variations of Chuck, they
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: were Chinese. He's in Chinatown, variations of Chuck in Chinatown.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: And so basically when he dies, they misprint his name
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: as Charles. He never wants Charles. No, it was George.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: So it was just basically a big mistake. I'm a
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: big mistake. Well, your nickname is, that's all. Yeah, not
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: a bad one. Not about another. How about um hank
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Hank is short for Harry or Henry. Right. Weird, but
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: this one makes more sense. It does. It's actually pretty straightforward.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Um Hank h gyng k is actually the Dutch name
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: for Henry, right. And so back in the century again
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: around New York with all the Dutch settlers, they would
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: have called somebody whose name was Henry Hank h g
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: n k, which eventually became Hank. Pretty boring until you
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: realize that the original nickname for Henry wasn't Hank, but
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: among English speakers it was Harry, so much so that
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Prince Harry, his real name, is actually Prince Henry, which
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: I had no idea until today yesterday, same here. Uh.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: This one is super interesting because I've often pondered how
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: does a Richard become a dick? And this one is.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: This one kind of goes back to medieval times when
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: basically there were kind of like four names. You were John, William,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Robert or Richard um and then there was always like
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: you know, says over in the corner, but it was
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: basically those four names more or less, and so it
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: got really confusing, and so nicknames became really popular, so
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: you could sort out your Richard's and your Robert's and
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: your John's and your Williams. Yeah, because not only did
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: they all have the same first name, people didn't have
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: last names by that time. Yet. It's just so confusing
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: back then, it really was. So people started coming up
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: with rhyming names where the first letter would be different, right.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: You had to make sure you were killing the right
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: guy right, exactly right. So Richard has always had the
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: shortened form of rick basically, but because you might know
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: seven ricks, you might also call one of them hick
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: or dick. Because rhyming names and switching letters with an
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: H or a D was very very popular back when
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: people had absolutely nothing to do but farm and then die,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: so they would come up with with stuff like this.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: So the original nickname for Richard was hick Um at first,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: from what I understand. Yeah, the same for Robert. Robert
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: wasn't Bob at first, it was Dobb or hobb, and
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: then Bob came along much later. For the same reason. Yeah,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: and actually you can see this. There are people walking
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: around with the last names of Hobson or Dobson. That
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: would be the son of a Bob or Robert who
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: is nicknamed Hobbard dobb by the people again who had
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: nothing to do with their time. All right, this is
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: getting really confusing, So we're going to take a quick
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: break and come back and talk about Williams and Margaret's
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: and Sarah's and Ann's and John's right for this, Okay, Chuck,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: William to Bill seems pretty straightforward. Will Bill at rhymes,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: but apparently that's not the story behind it. If you
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: go into the Irish Gaelic dialect, which is probably a
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: form of Celtic, if you'll remember from the Druid episode,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: if you um look at the letter W, you would
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: typically want to say W, but now it actually makes
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: a buzz sound. And so when William the Conqueror headed
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: into Ireland in the late seventeenth century UM, he was
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: not very well liked, and so the local people who
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: spoke Irish Gaelic saw that William and called him Billy
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: instead of Willie. They called him Billy King. Billy was
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: the first Bill and that's how Bill became the nickname
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: for William. But how does the Bill become a law uh?
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: On Capitol Hill? It just hangs around. Uh, ladies, we
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: haven't forgotten about you. Uh. Mark Peggy is a nickname
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: for Margaret. Which this is where things get really interesting
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: with the rhymes. Yeah, if you weren't interested before, prepared
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: to be finally in this episode, because apparently in the
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: fifteen hundreds, in the sixteenth century, there was another fad
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: for rhyming M names with P names. So the this
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: is how it goes timeline wise. Margaret becomes Marge, that
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: becomes mag or mag I guess um, that becomes meg
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Eventually that becomes Meggie perhaps, and then that becomes Meggy yep,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Maggie Peggy. And they say that that's the lineage or
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: not the lineage. But you know what's the word I'm
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: looking for? The uh, well, the lineage. I think that works.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: The etymology, the evolution, Yeah, the evolution. There you go
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: that thing. Here's another one from Margaret. So did you
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: know that Daisy is a nickname for Margaret? I had
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: never heard that. I hadn't either, which makes zero sense
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: until you start speaking French and you find out that
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: um marguerite is the word for the flower daisy. And
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: so some English speakers, who we're pretty full of themselves, said,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: we're gonna start calling Margaret's daisies. Okay, I buy that,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: I love it. Martha would turn into math or moth um.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Eventually that would become Maddie, and then Patty and then Patsy.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: So Patsy is apparently still a nickname for Martha. Did
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: not know that one. I did not know that either.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: So my favorite of all is and to Nancy. Yeah,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: I like this one too. Actually, so instead of like
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: calling saying something was my m y, people would say mine,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: and they would speak affectionately of people or I guess
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: possessively of people by saying like mine an right, And
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: then because people don't like to expend a lot of energy,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: that got shortened to Nan my Nan Nan Right. Then
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Nan got kind of changed and dalled up to Nanny
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: and then Nancy and then finally Nancy. So Nancy is
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: a nickname for Ann. And the same thing also applies
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: to like ned nelly um any any English name that
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: begins with a vowel um could be changed from mine
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: ed to ned pretty easily. There's one apparently ascribed to
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: baby talk or attributed to I guess I should say
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Sarah um. Apparently some kids have problems pronouncing the little
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: the letter R, it will sound like an L. So
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Sarah somehow makes the leap to Sally because of kids.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: I guess have you Have you ever heard Sally is
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: a nickname for Sarah? No? I always thought Sally was
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: just that was just the name you were born with,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: or maybe it was short for salsa. You know, my
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: daughter started making up nicknames for ghost friends, which I
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: guess her imaginary friends. Uh. And it's funny to see
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: her just come up with these names because one of
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: them is salsa. Oh really, that's awesome. Yeah, there's uh
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: o C, salsa, fossil um andy, see saw and see you.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: She loves the sibilants. Huh yeah. I mean it's it's
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: all sort of you know, it's it's uh, she's working
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: it out. You're like, it's all in good fun. It is.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: But now, like I reference salsa or fossil or o
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: C and she's like, yeah, they're right over there, And
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: then I laugh. But part of me goes is my
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: house haunted? Right as long as they're not telling her
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: to burn things. I think you're okay. My my oldest
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: sister had imaginary friends and they were named Bobby Teak
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: and Peak. Bobby Teak and Peak. Was it Bobby Teaka
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: is one name or there were three people? There were
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: three people, so there must be something to that alliteration,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: and I think, so, all right, let's finish up with
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: John and Jack being a nickname for John, because I
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: always when I first heard that, I think it was
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: in the presidential debates when uh, who was it that
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: said you're no Jack Kennedy Lloyd Benson. Yeah, I remember
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: hearing that and being like, who the heck is Jack Kennedy?
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: I think he met John and uh, then I found
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: out it was a nickname, and I never I never
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: quite got that until yesterday. Yeah, which is weird because
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: nicknames are usually shortened names. This is just two four
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: letter names and John and Jack. But yeah, Jack is
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: a is a nickname for John and they There's a
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: couple of theories. One is an easy one that it
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: goes back to the Norman invasion where the French would
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: have brought the name Jacques over and that's that People
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: were like, oh, Jacques Jack, you know, makes sense. The
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: problem is is that Jacques is the French name for James,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: not John, so there's a little bit of a hole
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: in that one. The other is again in medieval England, um,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: sometimes you would add ki n Ken as a suffix.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: So William was Wilkin, Peter was Perkin, which is how
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: you get things like again wilkins son or perkins um.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: And apparently John became Jenkin, and Jenkin was shortened to Jink,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: which became Jack. I think really this just demonstrates no
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: one knows where Jack came from. I think. So. So
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: there you go. Hopefully your name was in there. If
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: it wasn't, you can make up your own nickname. It's cool. Um,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: go ahead and let us know what it is. Find
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: us somewhere on social or via email who knows. But
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: we leave it up to you to determine which route
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: to take. In the meantime, we're out of here with
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: our short stuff. Stuff you should know is production of
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.