Dick (nickname)

Dick is a nickname most often for Richard, which likely originated in the Middle Ages as rhyming slang for "Rick", as did William → Will → Bill and Robert → Rob → Bob. The association with "penis" is more recent, arising from Dick becoming a cliché name for any man, as in Tom, Dick and Harry.[1] The use of the nickname Dick has declined drastically in recent decades due to the association of Dick with a penis; by 1969, Dick had fallen outside of the top 1,000 most common names for newborn baby boys in the US. By 2014, there were fewer than five babies born in the United States with the name Dick on a birth certificate. [2]

  1. ^ Tony Merevick (September 8, 2016). "How Did 'Dick' Become Short for 'Richard'?". Thrillist. Retrieved June 24, 2021.
  2. ^ https://medium.com/mel-magazine/where-did-all-the-dicks-go-65d39e6c6981 [bare URL]