Odd nicknames that seem stranger than the original names

[MyUnderpants]

Some nicknames are just odd. Personally I can't stand Saz as a short form of Sara(h) which is short enough not to need it. But it's logical I guess. Any strange examples?

Lots of diminutives are simply rhyming -

Robert/Rob = Bob
Richard/Rick = Dick
Margaret/Meg/Meggy = Peg/Peggy
Mary/Molly = Polly

Possibly because lots of these names are very old and would have been used at a time when there weren’t that many ‘first’ names to choose from so people had to distinguish between the many in the local village/area with the same given name.

Not quite the same but I have a friend whose name is Jack Chapman. He lives in England but has a Welsh accent. When he was at school, someone thought he was Scottish so started calling him haggis.

His name has been 'Haggers' ever since. Some people even think that's his surname, and the school even began putting it down on forms etc just as an assumption. I think this has happened to him once or twice in adulthood too.

The only Peggy i have ever know was properly 'Ethel Maud'

I call my grandaughter all sorts-Tilly being one- nothing like her name, came from something I used to call her. ''Come here Tilly tatty head'' when her hair needed brushing.

Nick names & Derivitives are two completely different thing.
Penelope= Penny-= dervivative
Penelope= Tuppence= nickname

This is so sweet; similarly my Mum has always called me Dotty. It's from Jennyanydots from TS Eliot (my name is Jennifer) but you wouldn't know that at first glance.

Nick names & Derivitives are two completely different thing.
Penelope= Penny-= dervivative
Penelope= Tuppence= nickname

Agree - although I would use the word diminuitive.

MN is totally weird about what a nickname actually is.

Did anyone else's granny have a "professional" name? At wok everyone called my granny "Joan". We just knew her as "granny". I asked my dad and he said, "Mum".

When she died I found out it was Anne.

What was that about?

I once worked with a woman whose mother was called Dorothy but known as Dumps. She actually christened her daughter Dumps. Very strange

Well speaking as the woman whose childhood nickname was Google (WELL before the internet!)….

My elderly neighbour died last year, we had been neighbours for 20 years and it was only at his funeral I discovered his actual name was Henry and not Harry! So weird.

🤣

How did you get that nickname?!

I had a friend at university called Penelope-known as Plods. She was vair,vain posh. It was a thing.

I was very much the youngest, and one of my brothers called me Goo Girl (because I only said goo” The inevitable happened!

i love this. Is it a really British thing that nicknames like this stick? I once saw a tweet from someone who had a friend who at school went on holiday to Morocco and when he got back gave a presentation to the class about it. He was forever known as Cous Cous.

Came here to say this. They don’t make much sense now but when there were like six names to go round everyone I can imagine it got quite confusing and people had to get a bit creative with their diminutives to work out which Margaret or Elizabeth they were talking about.

Disclaimer: obviously I know there were slightly more than six names to go around but I read a lot of history stuff and it can feel that way!

I think some of the Elizabeth diminutives are interesting, Betty as you say, or Libby!
Bets. Bess.

Lilibet for the late Queen was charming as it was what her sister called her but the Sussexes using it as a first name is just cringe.

I think names like Jack and Harry started because dc were named after their parents so instead of 2 Henry's you had a Henry and a Harry. Peggy for Margaret is odd, but when my mam was growing up pretty much everyone she knew was Mary or Margaret, with the odd Elizabeth thrown in, so a wide variety of nicknames was necessary. That's my take on it anyway.

Great thread. I was reminded of Enid Blyton’s find outers. Fatty, Larry, Daisy, Pip and Bets.

I had an auntie Alma. I recently discovered she was really Emily. Most of her husband's family went by different names - Frederick Henry was Jimma, Anne was Queen, Ernest was Jack...

'Harry' is just the original pronunciation of 'Henry'. It's a French name ('Henri' in modern French) and the N is not closed in French pronunciation so the English version retained the open N.

So Henry the Eighth would actually have been pronounced Harry the Eighth.

Think of it as an alternative pronunciation of the same word, rather than a nickname.

You meant diminutive right?

A Penelope nicknamed Plods could not be anything but incredibly posh. I'm thinking a minor character in the old French and Saunders 'posh old ladies' sketch.

The etymology is interesting to me!

Lots of nicknames stem from when there were generally fewer names and people lived in closer communities. So you might end up with several Margaret's living and working in close proximity, and want a way to tell them apart. So one was Margaret, one became Maggie, then Meggie, then Peggy....the Daisy connection came along from the french for daisy being Marguerite, then Daisy morphed into Maisy. We also get Margot from Marguerite.

Harry as a form of Henry also came from French origins. I think it was something to do with medieval pronunciation of Henri, coupled with the fact that like Margaret there were a tonne of Henry's and people wanted a way to differentiate.

It's interesting when you get into it. English language evolving over time, naming trends. Lots to discover!

My gran and her sisters found out their mum´s real name when she died. They all thought it was Ruby, it turned out to be Lilly. I thought it was very weird when my gran told me, years later.

As a Rebecca I absolutely hate Becky. I don’t respond. Becca is fine. I also get called Bea.

Margaret > Meg or Meggy > Peg > Peggy.

See:

https://biramdyene.medium.com/why-richard-became-dick-and-other-weird-word-evolutions-0a35dc6eface