That announcement is usually made around this time of year, giving me a chance to make fun of infants and their parents: "Maverick is a top-100 name now? And Axel? What happened to normal names . . . like Bradley (which is 247th)?"
Ha ha ha.
Really, it's all in fun. I don't quibble with the fact that Liam and Emma are the most popular names. They are fine names and the names of my generation – Michael, David and John were the most popular names for boys for the decade in which I was born; Lisa, Mary and Susan were the most popular girls' names – are now associated with old people.
Times change.
So what to do? Without the annual list to inspire cheap jokes at the expense of nervous young parents and their infant children, I turn to a related issue: How did we get some of the nicknames for members of the Greatest Generation?
I mean, I understand how Samuel becomes Sam or Sammy. I get how Francis becomes Frank. I even grasp how Dorothy becomes Dot. Derivative nicknames make sense. My name is Bradley, but everyone calls me Brad.
But . . .
How did Richard get shortened to Dick? Shortening Richard to Rick is a little bit of a stretch – there's no "k" in Richard. Would advocates of the Richard-Rick scheme also approve of calling someone named Blanche, "Blank?" Not likely. Shortening Richard to Dick is even more baffling. Different first and last letters!
Dick isn't alone. How did we get "Bill" from William? Liam, the most popular boys' name of 2018, is short for William (something I realized about six months ago, when I Googled "where did we get the name Liam?"). So is Will. But Bill? There is no B in William. How does the nickname start with a B? That's like me going by Wrad. ("My name is Bradley, but you can call me Wrad. All my friends do.")
It's nonsense.
You know what else is crazy? That Peggy is a nickname for Margaret. How did that happen? Did someone sit down and say, "Hmm, Margaret is a long name and has too many syllables. How about we shorten it? Maybe to something that sounds nothing like it. How about Joan? No, maybe Peggy? That's it! Brilliant!"
Dick. Bill. Peggy. Everyone in my parents' generation had a nickname that made no sense. James became Jim. Charles was Chuck. Edward was Ted.
And then, the most mystifying: Jack.
Jack, of course, is the nickname for John. There are plenty of people named Jack because that's on their birth certificate (from 2011-2018, John was the 27th most popular name, Jack was 41st. In the 1930s, John was third, Jack was 18th).
There's a long history of people named John. There's a long history of people named Jack. And inexplicably, there's a long history of people named John who are called Jack.
Jack shares one letter with John. Jack has the same number of letters as John. Jack has the same number of syllables as John.
Yet we have Jack Kennedy. Jack Nicholson. Jack Lemmon. All guys actually named John.
We can all laugh at the names that young parents give their babies and chuckle about how things were different in our day. However, my generation and those who came before me have to answer for the shortened nicknames.
How did we get Dick? Peggy? Bill?
It's like we didn't know Jack.
Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.
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