From Laura Wattenberg’s always-thoughtful Baby Name blog:
Quick question: which of these names is not like the others?
Molly, Elsie, Sadie, Lucy
At first glance, the four make a natural style group. They’re all cozy, old-fashioned girls’ names that have returned to popularity in the 21st Century. But Molly, Sadie and Millie are traditional nicknames. Lucy is not.
Lucy is the English form of Lucia, much as Mary is the English form of Maria. Lucia dates back to ancient Rome; it’s the female version of Lucius.
If you had assumed Lucy to be a nickname for something longer, I [Wattenberg] can’t blame you. The name’s simplicity and diminutive-style ending certainly fit that model. . . . On tv, I Love Lucy referred to Lucille, not Lucy, Ball. In the comics, Lucy van Pelt shared the Peanuts stage with nicknames like Charlie, Sally, and Patty. . . .
The name Lucinda in particular has been doing its best to rewrite Lucy history. Modern historical fiction is peppered with 19th-century Lucinda-called-Lucys. This popularity is reminiscent of the preposterous number of romance heroes named Sebastian, and it’s nearly as implausible. The 1841 England Census lists only 34 women of all ages named Lucinda, compared to thousands named Lucy.
Statistics!
Wattenberg concludes:
I’d argue that we have the names backwards. Rather than thinking of Lucy as short for Lucinda or Lucille, we should think of those names as “long” for Lucy.
Excellent point.
And now I have a story for you. I had an Aunt Lucy—she was a fascinating person, at one point she taught math at the state prison in Sing Sing, eventually she and Uncle Edwin succumbed to dementia in their old age. Her official name was Lutheria, chosen by her father in honor of the famed agriculturalist Luther Burbank. The other kids in the family were named Bertha, Woody (full name, Woodrow Wilson Gelman) and Robert; it is said that Grandpa named Lucy and Woody, and Grandma named Bertha and Bobby. When we were kids we were told that Lucy absolutely hated the name Lutheria (maybe she just should’ve been happy she wasn’t named Bertha, I dunno?) and we were never to call her that.
But, yeah, given that the name Lucy was already out there, I can see Wattenberg’s point, that Lutheria is just one more long version of Lucy.
Lucille is the English version of Lucilla, which is Latin for “little Lucia”, so I’m on board with Wattenberg, too.
I don’t get it. If someone named Lucinda is called Lucy—and this does happen—then Lucy is a nickname for Lucinda. Whether its origins were as a nickname or not is a totally arbitrary criteria.
Yeah, I agree: although Lucy is not _necessarily_ a nickname, it is _often_ a nickname.
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Someone from my team suggested that Lucy (my grandma’s first name, by the way) may be derived, and represent the nickname for, Lucifer. Which would make sense, if Lucifer does not have a fixed gender. Otherwise, not so much.