Nicknames/short names that don't make sense

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nellie for Helen

You don't see how that works?

NP. I don't see how it works. Explain.

[Anonymous]

What is Minx a nickname for? It's the nn of a girl on the show The Whispers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jack for Hyacinth (man's name) ... not until I was older did I understand

I don't get it...

H. is an old name. In Polish the diminutive is Jacek based on the middle sound YAC plus -EK. Jacek => Jack

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dick and Richard

Jack and John

Peggy and Margaret

Chuck and Charles

Many of these old nicknames, as well as the many nn's for Elizabeth, Henry, William, Mary, etc., made sense back in colonial or medieval times when they originated. We might not recognize where they come from anymore, but does doesn't mean the don't make sense.



Dick may come, believe it or not, from the English inability to pronounce the name Richard as it was pronounced by the Normans who introduced it to England in medieval times.

I see what you did there. Heh, heh.

Fascinating insights. Thank you.


Etc.

[Anonymous]

I thought of a couple more I like - Hal for Henry and Kit for Christopher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is Minx a nickname for? It's the nn of a girl on the show The Whispers.

Apparently Minx is a nickname for Minx.

[Anonymous]

Sasha for Alexander

[Anonymous]

A lot of the nicknames for Elizabeth come from the way little children pronounce the name. Betty, for instance, is the way the attempt to say Elizabeth comes out for some little ones.

Lisa and Liza are also nicknames for Elizabeth. They simply come from the middle of the name.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ned for Eddard.

Ha! This bugs me too!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're right, all nn probably do have a REASON, but some of those reasons are dumb. Calling your kid TeeJay is fine and seems logical. Calling your little Thomas John, CRAIG, while you're still pregnant is weird! Why not just name your kid Craig. (this is just an example name, but I've run into this sort of thing and that is what I'm complaining about). Also, I don't take anything on DCUM seriously, that's probably why I don't think this thread is overly judgmental. I actually enjoy kind of pointless threads like this more than "serious" threads that don't go anywhere and turn into debates about public breastfeeding or when to turn your toddler forward facing (been there done that).

You seem to have a pretty narrow view of names, like that thread where the teacher thought an Isabella should always be called Isabella even if the kid went by Bella. I haven't come across any extreme examples like you mention, and since you admit it's a made up one it's hard to judge what's going on, but a name has to do a lot over a person's lifetime, so it makes sense to me why parents might want a name that provides options over time. Little Timmy can decide to be Elizabeth or any of the other nicknames later if she wants, but if her parents had actually named her "Timmy" she'd be SOL. As for Jordan and Danny, it seems to me to be a nice solution in the event that the parents actually like BOTH names and don't want to decide. My DH and I went with a name theme that we realize our kids may grow to hate, so we purposely chose names that have nicknames outside the theme so our kids have options later.

[Anonymous]

I too hate forced nicknames (we're naming her this but we will call her this), but I do love the old fashioned nicknames. They are fascinating. So I can't get too upset over it. At least the old ones make sense.

Thanks to the poster who explained some of them, like John, Jack, Jenkins...cool!

As for the N ones "Nan Bullen" was what the commoners called Anne Boleyn. Nan, Nell, Nellie (for Eleanor or Helen ("Elen-pronounced, no "H"--same with Hannah, Anna...)), Ned, etc. ... It is possibly from combining "Mine Edward" or "Mine Anne", etc. According to Wikipedia, it's called rebracketing.

Makes tons more sense than naming your kid Elizabeth but just deciding to call her Timmy!

[Anonymous]

Loo for Laura (me)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
You seem to have a pretty narrow view of names, like that thread where the teacher thought an Isabella should always be called Isabella even if the kid went by Bella. I haven't come across any extreme examples like you mention, and since you admit it's a made up one it's hard to judge what's going on, but a name has to do a lot over a person's lifetime, so it makes sense to me why parents might want a name that provides options over time. Little Timmy can decide to be Elizabeth or any of the other nicknames later if she wants, but if her parents had actually named her "Timmy" she'd be SOL. As for Jordan and Danny, it seems to me to be a nice solution in the event that the parents actually like BOTH names and don't want to decide. My DH and I went with a name theme that we realize our kids may grow to hate, so we purposely chose names that have nicknames outside the theme so our kids have options later.

If her parents had actually named her Timmy, she could still go by Elizabeth or whatever. Like this:

Person #1: Hi, Timmy!
Person #2: Actually, I go by Elizabeth.

But yes, the

Person #1: Hi, Isabella!
Bella: Actually, I go by Bella.
Person #1: No, I refuse to call you Bella! It says Isabella on your birth certificate, and so I must call you Isabella, you selfish entitled whiner!

thread was a real DCUM classic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Polly for Mary
Tess for Elizabeth
Sasha for Alexandra or Alexander
Daisy for Margaret
Bunny for Edmund

It's Bess for Elizabeth, not Tess. Tess is for Theresa.

Sasha for Alexander (Aleksandr) is Russian. The Sa- is from Alek-SA-ndr, and the -sha is the nickname ending (in this case).

Tess can be a nickname for Elizabeth too. It's not like there is only one nickname for Elizabeth. There are 4 pages of nicknames for Elizabeth on nameberry: http://nameberry.com/list/11/Nicknames-for-Elizabeth

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You seem to have a pretty narrow view of names, like that thread where the teacher thought an Isabella should always be called Isabella even if the kid went by Bella. I haven't come across any extreme examples like you mention, and since you admit it's a made up one it's hard to judge what's going on, but a name has to do a lot over a person's lifetime, so it makes sense to me why parents might want a name that provides options over time. Little Timmy can decide to be Elizabeth or any of the other nicknames later if she wants, but if her parents had actually named her "Timmy" she'd be SOL. As for Jordan and Danny, it seems to me to be a nice solution in the event that the parents actually like BOTH names and don't want to decide. My DH and I went with a name theme that we realize our kids may grow to hate, so we purposely chose names that have nicknames outside the theme so our kids have options later.

If her parents had actually named her Timmy, she could still go by Elizabeth or whatever. Like this:

Person #1: Hi, Timmy!
Person #2: Actually, I go by Elizabeth.

But yes, the

Person #1: Hi, Isabella!
Bella: Actually, I go by Bella.
Person #1: No, I refuse to call you Bella! It says Isabella on your birth certificate, and so I must call you Isabella, you selfish entitled whiner!

thread was a real DCUM classic.

pp here, and this illustrates my point about names doing different work over a lifetime, because while this might seem to work OK for babies or in early years of school, when it starts to matter what one's legal name is, it creates difficult situations to make up names that have fuck-all to do with your given name. I speak from experience, this happened to my sister, who for reasons too complicated to explain was told her first name was NameA when it was legally NameB. She went by her middle so it wasn't an issue until she started doing things like writing "NameA Last, but call me Middle" on job applications while providing the SSN of, according to the government, NameB Middle Last. By the time people are applying for jobs they are pretty attached to their name, so it's not easy to make changes anymore.