Dan Radcliffe in "My Boy Jack"

[Geoff]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" <justcarol67 at ...> wrote:
>
> [Steve B]:
> > Jack is a common nickname for John. Though it seems somewhat  pointless, I can see Jim for James, or Bob for Robert, but 'Jack' and 'John' are the same length and one is no easier to say they [than] the other.
> > 
> > [Lee]:
> > Perhaps Jack came up because the French Jacques is our John.  Just a possibility.
> 
> 
> Carol responds to both:
> 
> I think Lee is right. However, the main reason that the English developed so many nicknames for names like John and Robert (and Elizabeth and many others) is that these names were so common. 

Geoff:
"Nickname" isn't quite right. The names we are looking at are "family" or 
even "chum's" names.

Nicknames are not always related to the actual name but more to some 
characteristic. When I first came to live in South London when I was nine,
my nickname was "Scot"- because the Cockneys couldn't distinguish
between my natural dialect, which was from Lancashire and a Scottish 
accent! You'll meet people with nicknames Nobby, Lofty, Shorty, Titch
and so on.

"Jack" for some reason evokes an impression of a slightly quirkier and
mischievious person than a John..... Returning to a moment to Jon, 
again when I was young, Jonathan was a fairly unusual name, John being 
far more common. When it became a little familiar in ensuing years,
the form Johnathon was occasionally met, but the "h" rapidly dropped out 
and with the modern tendency to shorten a name where possible, Jon 
became very much a norm to distinguish it from the already short form John.
I personally hate being called by my full name Geoffrey, which was the 
province of my mother and the school secretary where I worked when
anything went wrong.
:-(

There are some odd regional variants,, particularly in Cockney where you
meet the forms Tel=Terry=Terence, Hal=Harry=Henry/Harold (Prince Hal
in Shakespeare), Sal=Sally=Sarah and so on. And then of course there is the 
oddity of William becoming Bill - and Bob has already been cited.