Nicknames and diminutives, are always interesting and how they come about. Some people have completely made up ones, that are even taken from a humours moment or random moments. Others are cultural names that may even mean something different in other countries and languages.
Some can even sound rude and I have come across many when I was a public servant, in fact some staff members were afraid to say them because of what they sounded like in English or the spelling was similar.
I had a misunderstanding on a nickname of mine given to me by my father from years ago, of course I was a teenager then. One Scottish diminutive of my name turns out to be offensive in England. Eck, which is a diminutive of Alexander and Alexandra which itself is shortened to Alex or Alec. Alec is the way to pronounce Alex in Scotland, and is normally spelled with a ‘c’ at the end of the name not an ‘x’. But Alec or Alex can be shortened again to Eck. However it’s more commonly shortened to Sandy for a man or Alec.
I remember a boy at high school being nicknamed Eck. Like the character in the Oor Wullie cartoon, wee Eck. The name may have gone out of fashion with younger people these days, I don’t know because I have not kept up with a lot of things from Scotland. But a miscommunication happened recently and I had no idea that Eck was an insult in the north of England. lol, that took me by surprise so I had to google that one. It pays to sometimes check and clarify things occasionally.
It was assumed that I was being self derogatory, when I wasn’t, wee Eck is not an insult, it is a term of endearment in Scotland, meaning little Alec and I am very small and using it in humour. If you go by the name Eck in Scotland everyone knows that your full name is Alexander or Alexandra. How times change. 😻🤣🤣
