Comments on: Origins of Nicknames

By: David

David — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:43:07 +0000

Thanks for sharing that Johanna. Cool process. It seems like it could have easily went from “Han of Joe” to “Hand Job” in certain circles of friends, glad “Hand” is how it ended up”.

Cheers,
David

By: Johanna

Johanna — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:51:23 +0000

I would love to know someone named Boat.

My name is Johanna, and a lot of people call me Han. My roommate had a funny tendency in high school to structure words as “second syllable + the word ‘of’ + the first syllable,” so I became “Han of Jo” … eventually we got lazy and it was shortened to Han (pronounced like “hand”).

By: David

David — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 00:13:44 +0000

Thanks Keni. Very interesting history.

By: Keni

Keni — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 04:28:11 +0000

From Wikipedia.org

Etymology
1440 CE, misdivision of ekename (1303), an eke name, literally “an additional name,” from Old English eaca “an increase,” related to eacian “to increase”. [1]

In Viking societies, many people had nicknames heiti, viðrnefni or uppnefi which were used in addition to, or instead of their family names. In some circumstances the giving of a nickname had a special status in Viking society in that it created a relationship between the name maker and the recipient of the nickname, to the extent that the creation of a nickname also often entailed a formal ceremony and an exchange of gifts.