Dick

Dick is an English and Dutch pet form of Richard, which derives from the Old High German elements ric, meaning power or ruler, and hard, meaning brave or strong. The shift from Rich to Rick and then to Dick followed a common medieval pattern of rhyming substitution used to create familiar short forms of longer names. The name was extremely common in medieval England, making Dick a widespread everyday nickname, and it later became an independent given name in its own right. Richard and Rick are the most closely related forms, while Hick and Hitch represent other rhyming variants from the same era.