Our philosophy in our forums, reviews, podcasts and feature videos is to promote audio and visual excellence by gathering and sharing the best information and resources available.
Most of these names are simple abbreviations of earlier forms of the ‘regular’ name. Some are a bit odder than others.
Among the simple ones are James -> Jim. Back when James was bisyllabic (or even trisyllabic; James is the English form of Jacomus, which is the Latin form of the Greek name Iakobos, i.e., Jacob/Jake), Jim (or Jēm, or something like that) arose as a simple abbreviation.
William -> Bill, Robert -> Bob and Richard -> Dick are the same, just removing the last syllable. The w -> b and r -> d are probably from foreign pronunciations of the names—r was trilled heavily in Norman French (where Richard was also kept as Rickard, with the k sound, much longer than in English), and at some point, the English heard that trill as a d. Similarly, Irish had no w earlier on (though it does now), only a bilabial pronounced like a b without the lips touching each other; the English just heard this as a b, and Will(iam) became Bill. The more purely English forms Rich(ie) and Will(y) exist as well, of course. And besides Bob, other forms used to be quite common as well, all rhyming: Dob, Hob, Nob [I kid you not], Lob.
(Also, the meaning of ‘dick’ as penis comes from the name Dick, not the other way around)
Jack from John is a bit more complex, since it’s not English, but Dutch. John, as you probably know, comes from Johannes. This became, in Early Dutch, Jan, to which was added a diminutive suffix -kin (same as -chen in Modern German), giving Jankin. This then became Jakkin (Jackin) in English, which was shortened to just Jack (2001, if you’re a Will & Grace fan).
Hank is, properly, the exact same name. Besides Jan(kin), Johannes also became Hans or Hankin in Dutch, and this was similarly shortened to Hank in English (though without the intermediate Hackin step). I suppose using it for Henry is an arbitrary shortening based on the French form of this latter name, Henrique (Henrik/Hendrik in Dutch), by removing the -ri-, but not the k...
Babs is just a simple shortening, nothing more. The s at the end is not uncommon in such shortenings (Kevin can become Kevs, etc.), though it doesn’t seem to have been standardised as the only form in other names than Barbara, that I can think of...
So basically, they’re all just regular name abbreviations and pet forms, formed more or less regularly (at the time they were formed).
Jack from John is a bit more complex, since it’s not English, but Dutch. John, as you probably know, comes from Johannes. This became, in Early Dutch, Jan, to which was added a diminutive suffix -kin (same as -chen in Modern German), giving Jankin. This then became Jakkin (Jackin) in English, which was shortened to just Jack (2001, if you’re a Will & Grace fan).
So is that why alot of jockernese people call John's Jack?
05-12-2008, 12:24 PM
E. & O.E.
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
