WEBVTT - Short Stuff: Nicknames 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.440 Hello, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck, 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:11.080 there's Josh, and this is short stuff. Like I said, 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:16.880 your nickname is Josh, which is short for Joshua, and 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:21.360 that makes sense. It does almost boringly. So your nickname 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:25.840 is Chuck, which is short for Chuck. Now it's short 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:28.560 for Charles. Yeah. That's what kind of got me onto this. 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:31.600 I realized I sort of never knew how Chuck came 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:34.440 from Charles. And there are a lot of examples of 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:37.880 names that, uh, we're going to go through right now 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:41.560 that don't quite make sense, and there are some interesting 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:44.480 and murky stories behind a lot of these. Well let's 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:47.120 start with yours. Look, Chuck, I always thought Chuck was 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:52.200 short for Chuck Chuck bo Buck, but it's not. It's 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:56.080 it's short for Charles. But it doesn't really make sense. 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:58.800 I mean, there is the ch that that you know, 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:00.920 you're like, well, okay, there's so see it in that way. 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:03.440 That's about it, though, But it turns out that the 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:06.920 story behind how Chuck got associated with Charles is one 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:10.399 of the most fascinating, convoluted stories that anyone's ever come 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:17.000 up with, And unlike most nicknames for English language names. Um. 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:19.440 It does not come from England or even from the 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:23.560 UK or Europe. Comes from America, specifically the Lower East 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:26.720 Side of New York, in Chinatown, where there was a 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:33.080 guy named Um George Washington O'Connor who came to be 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:39.399 known as the first Chuck, Chuck O'Connor, org just Chuck Connors, Yeah, 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:42.680 and not the Chuck Connors, the actor of the Yeah, 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:45.679 that's a little confusing, but this is a gangster. He 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:48.040 grew up in Chinatown, and this is how the story goes. 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:51.840 You know, we weren't there. Um hung out in Chinatown 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:54.280 a lot by growing up there obviously, and became known 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:58.520 as a mayor of Chinatown. And he says that he 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:01.560 got the name Chuck because he loved Chuck Steak, and 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.720 everyone else said that's not true. Man. Yeah, I mean 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:07.000 I don't know. He's the guy he should know, but 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:10.920 other people appointed to the eighteen fifty census in the 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:13.720 US where if you look at those names and you 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:17.280 pick out the Chucks or the variations of Chuck, they 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:22.160 were Chinese. He's in Chinatown, variations of Chuck in Chinatown. 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:27.079 And so basically when he dies, they misprint his name 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:30.200 as Charles. He never wants Charles. No, it was George. 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:32.880 So it was just basically a big mistake. I'm a 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:39.120 big mistake. Well, your nickname is, that's all. Yeah, not 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:42.760 a bad one. Not about another. How about um hank 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:46.600 Hank is short for Harry or Henry. Right. Weird, but 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:50.799 this one makes more sense. It does. It's actually pretty straightforward. 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:55.239 Um Hank h gyng k is actually the Dutch name 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:59.960 for Henry, right. And so back in the century again 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:02.640 around New York with all the Dutch settlers, they would 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:06.280 have called somebody whose name was Henry Hank h g 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:11.200 n k, which eventually became Hank. Pretty boring until you 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:14.960 realize that the original nickname for Henry wasn't Hank, but 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:18.560 among English speakers it was Harry, so much so that 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:21.760 Prince Harry, his real name, is actually Prince Henry, which 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:27.840 I had no idea until today yesterday, same here. Uh. 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:31.639 This one is super interesting because I've often pondered how 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:36.280 does a Richard become a dick? And this one is. 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:38.920 This one kind of goes back to medieval times when 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:43.360 basically there were kind of like four names. You were John, William, 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:46.960 Robert or Richard um and then there was always like 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:50.760 you know, says over in the corner, but it was 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:55.480 basically those four names more or less, and so it 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:59.120 got really confusing, and so nicknames became really popular, so 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:02.560 you could sort out your Richard's and your Robert's and 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:05.480 your John's and your Williams. Yeah, because not only did 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:07.480 they all have the same first name, people didn't have 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:10.560 last names by that time. Yet. It's just so confusing 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:13.280 back then, it really was. So people started coming up 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:17.680 with rhyming names where the first letter would be different, right. 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:19.080 You had to make sure you were killing the right 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:23.560 guy right, exactly right. So Richard has always had the 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:26.839 shortened form of rick basically, but because you might know 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.520 seven ricks, you might also call one of them hick 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:35.920 or dick. Because rhyming names and switching letters with an 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:38.800 H or a D was very very popular back when 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:42.039 people had absolutely nothing to do but farm and then die, 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:44.800 so they would come up with with stuff like this. 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:50.320 So the original nickname for Richard was hick Um at first, 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:53.880 from what I understand. Yeah, the same for Robert. Robert 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:57.240 wasn't Bob at first, it was Dobb or hobb, and 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:01.280 then Bob came along much later. For the same reason. Yeah, 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:03.479 and actually you can see this. There are people walking 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:07.720 around with the last names of Hobson or Dobson. That 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:10.760 would be the son of a Bob or Robert who 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:14.160 is nicknamed Hobbard dobb by the people again who had 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:16.479 nothing to do with their time. All right, this is 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:18.719 getting really confusing, So we're going to take a quick 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:22.719 break and come back and talk about Williams and Margaret's 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:50.400 and Sarah's and Ann's and John's right for this, Okay, Chuck, 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:55.159 William to Bill seems pretty straightforward. Will Bill at rhymes, 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.760 but apparently that's not the story behind it. If you 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:02.040 go into the Irish Gaelic dialect, which is probably a 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:05.320 form of Celtic, if you'll remember from the Druid episode, 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:08.760 if you um look at the letter W, you would 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:12.279 typically want to say W, but now it actually makes 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:16.360 a buzz sound. And so when William the Conqueror headed 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:19.680 into Ireland in the late seventeenth century UM, he was 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:23.520 not very well liked, and so the local people who 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:28.600 spoke Irish Gaelic saw that William and called him Billy 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:33.080 instead of Willie. They called him Billy King. Billy was 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:36.960 the first Bill and that's how Bill became the nickname 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:41.520 for William. But how does the Bill become a law uh? 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:45.440 On Capitol Hill? It just hangs around. Uh, ladies, we 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:48.640 haven't forgotten about you. Uh. Mark Peggy is a nickname 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:52.760 for Margaret. Which this is where things get really interesting 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:56.360 with the rhymes. Yeah, if you weren't interested before, prepared 0:06:56.400 --> 0:06:59.919 to be finally in this episode, because apparently in the 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:03.520 fifteen hundreds, in the sixteenth century, there was another fad 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:09.400 for rhyming M names with P names. So the this 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:14.960 is how it goes timeline wise. Margaret becomes Marge, that 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:19.640 becomes mag or mag I guess um, that becomes meg 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:25.600 Eventually that becomes Meggie perhaps, and then that becomes Meggy yep, 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:29.440 Maggie Peggy. And they say that that's the lineage or 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:31.680 not the lineage. But you know what's the word I'm 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:35.960 looking for? The uh, well, the lineage. I think that works. 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:40.000 The etymology, the evolution, Yeah, the evolution. There you go 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:43.920 that thing. Here's another one from Margaret. So did you 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:46.480 know that Daisy is a nickname for Margaret? I had 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:49.800 never heard that. I hadn't either, which makes zero sense 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:53.360 until you start speaking French and you find out that 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:58.080 um marguerite is the word for the flower daisy. And 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:01.520 so some English speakers, who we're pretty full of themselves, said, 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:05.800 we're gonna start calling Margaret's daisies. Okay, I buy that, 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:12.760 I love it. Martha would turn into math or moth um. 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:16.880 Eventually that would become Maddie, and then Patty and then Patsy. 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:21.080 So Patsy is apparently still a nickname for Martha. Did 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:23.040 not know that one. I did not know that either. 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:27.360 So my favorite of all is and to Nancy. Yeah, 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:30.440 I like this one too. Actually, so instead of like 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:34.640 calling saying something was my m y, people would say mine, 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:38.560 and they would speak affectionately of people or I guess 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:43.840 possessively of people by saying like mine an right, And 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:46.400 then because people don't like to expend a lot of energy, 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:50.839 that got shortened to Nan my Nan Nan Right. Then 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:55.080 Nan got kind of changed and dalled up to Nanny 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:59.840 and then Nancy and then finally Nancy. So Nancy is 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:03.800 a nickname for Ann. And the same thing also applies 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:09.240 to like ned nelly um any any English name that 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:14.560 begins with a vowel um could be changed from mine 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:20.440 ed to ned pretty easily. There's one apparently ascribed to 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:25.760 baby talk or attributed to I guess I should say 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:32.000 Sarah um. Apparently some kids have problems pronouncing the little 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:35.839 the letter R, it will sound like an L. So 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:40.880 Sarah somehow makes the leap to Sally because of kids. 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:44.760 I guess have you Have you ever heard Sally is 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:48.040 a nickname for Sarah? No? I always thought Sally was 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:50.679 just that was just the name you were born with, 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:58.000 or maybe it was short for salsa. You know, my 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:01.040 daughter started making up nicknames for ghost friends, which I 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:04.440 guess her imaginary friends. Uh. And it's funny to see 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:07.120 her just come up with these names because one of 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:10.560 them is salsa. Oh really, that's awesome. Yeah, there's uh 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:17.200 o C, salsa, fossil um andy, see saw and see you. 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:20.839 She loves the sibilants. Huh yeah. I mean it's it's 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:24.200 all sort of you know, it's it's uh, she's working 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:27.160 it out. You're like, it's all in good fun. It is. 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.199 But now, like I reference salsa or fossil or o 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:33.120 C and she's like, yeah, they're right over there, And 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:36.000 then I laugh. But part of me goes is my 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:39.719 house haunted? Right as long as they're not telling her 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:43.520 to burn things. I think you're okay. My my oldest 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:46.400 sister had imaginary friends and they were named Bobby Teak 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:51.600 and Peak. Bobby Teak and Peak. Was it Bobby Teaka 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.320 is one name or there were three people? There were 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:57.840 three people, so there must be something to that alliteration, 0:10:58.160 --> 0:10:59.880 and I think, so, all right, let's finish up with 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:03.080 John and Jack being a nickname for John, because I 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:06.800 always when I first heard that, I think it was 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:11.160 in the presidential debates when uh, who was it that 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:15.439 said you're no Jack Kennedy Lloyd Benson. Yeah, I remember 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:19.000 hearing that and being like, who the heck is Jack Kennedy? 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:23.600 I think he met John and uh, then I found 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:25.319 out it was a nickname, and I never I never 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:28.960 quite got that until yesterday. Yeah, which is weird because 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.920 nicknames are usually shortened names. This is just two four 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:36.559 letter names and John and Jack. But yeah, Jack is 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.960 a is a nickname for John and they There's a 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:42.320 couple of theories. One is an easy one that it 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:45.280 goes back to the Norman invasion where the French would 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:48.600 have brought the name Jacques over and that's that People 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:52.120 were like, oh, Jacques Jack, you know, makes sense. The 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:56.440 problem is is that Jacques is the French name for James, 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:58.760 not John, so there's a little bit of a hole 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:02.720 in that one. The other is again in medieval England, um, 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:05.680 sometimes you would add ki n Ken as a suffix. 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:10.280 So William was Wilkin, Peter was Perkin, which is how 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:15.600 you get things like again wilkins son or perkins um. 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:20.320 And apparently John became Jenkin, and Jenkin was shortened to Jink, 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:23.520 which became Jack. I think really this just demonstrates no 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:26.600 one knows where Jack came from. I think. So. So 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:29.240 there you go. Hopefully your name was in there. If 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.440 it wasn't, you can make up your own nickname. It's cool. Um, 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:35.040 go ahead and let us know what it is. Find 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:38.200 us somewhere on social or via email who knows. But 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:41.199 we leave it up to you to determine which route 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:43.880 to take. In the meantime, we're out of here with 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:49.040 our short stuff. Stuff you should know is production of 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:52.000 iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:55.040 heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:56.720 wherever you listen to your favorite shows.