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[Facts] How is Hitchcock a nickname for Isaac?
I kind of get the -cock part, but how is Hitch related to Isaac?Frrerrrrrrrrrrrrrr
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I do not believe Hitchcock is related to Isaac at all.I would not trust "Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature" as a reference for the etymology of surnames. The recent dictionaries of English surnames I have consulted all say that Hitch (and so Hitchcock) were medieval diminutives for Richard, not Isaac.
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Now I'm confused, but I guess I'm more inclined to believe that Hitchcock is a nickname for Richard.
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Ok, so -cock is not actually from Isaac. -cock was added on to names as a term of familiarity for men who had the "pertness of lusty and swaggering youth" (if you click the link below, scroll up a few pages to the beginning of the -cock section for this exact quote). From the same time period, there'd be nicknames like Johncock, Wilcock (William), Peacock (Peter). Here's the source cited on Hitchcock: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Curiosities_of_Puritan_Nomenclature/DiJAAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA16&printsec=frontcover
How exactly they get to Hitch from Isaac is a bit mysterious to me (maybe Issac -> Yitzhak -> Hitch?), but Hitchcock could have also been a nickname for Richard at the same time and that's more obvious (rhyming nicknames were common; Richard -> Rich -> Hitch -> Hitchcock).
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Thanks

This message was edited 2/21/2021, 8:48 PM

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