Nicknames: How John Became Jack and Other Odd Nicknames

Have you ever wondered how Jack became a nickname for John? Apart from the first letter, the two names have nothing in common. There are several names in the English language that have no apparent correlation with the standard nickname. Here are some of those names and how the nickname came about.

John-Jack

One of the most famous bearers of this name, John F. Kennedy, was known to friends and family as "Jack." But I wonder if he knew how much history that name had? John is a name with history stretching back far into Biblical times. However, during medieval times, the name John was altered slightly in the Germanic tongues to Jankin or Jackin. Out of that, we get the nickname Jack.

Richard-Dick

Just as with the previous name, medieval times brought about Dick as a nickname for Richard. The Normans, descendents of Vikings who resided in northern France, had a unique way of trilling their "r" sounds. When the English attempted to pronounce Richard as the Normans did, it was reported that they could not quite do it correctly and the "r" came off sounding like a "d". Thus Dick became a pet name for Richard.

Henry-Hank

Just as with John, Hank was derived from Hankin, a form of Jankin. Originally Hank was a nickname for John but over time it became closely associated with Henry.

Henry-Harry

Harry was the Medieval English form of the Germanic name, Heimiric or Henry.

James-Jim, Jimmy

The medieval pet form of James was Jim. Many of the names in medieval Europe were altered like this because of the conflicts in languages. In England for a time, there were contradictory Romance languages of the Norman French and the harsher, guttural languages of the Germanic tribes: the Danes, the Saxons, and the Celts. When one couldn't pronounce the name exactly, a new name was born. But the original name never went away completely. This is also how you get Molly as a nickname for Mary.

Margaret-Megan, Meg, Peggy