Nicknames for Richard
34 ideas for Richard — the short forms people actually use, plus cute, funny and gamer versions. Copy any of them in one click.
- Rich the modern default
- Rick the older standard
- Ricky the affectionate form of Rick
- Richie the affectionate form of Rich
- Dick the medieval rhyming form, now rare
- Rick-Bear the family affectionate pattern
- Ritchie the t spelling
- Ricky-Boy the affectionate compound
- Riccardo the Italian form
- Ricardo the Spanish and Portuguese form
- Rikárd the Hungarian form
- Ryszard the Polish form
- Rysiek the Polish everyday short form
- Richárd the Hungarian spelling
- Rikard the Scandinavian form
- Rico the Spanish and German clip
- Ricardito the Spanish -ito affectionate form
- Richie Rich the comic joke, and it always lands
- R initial only, in group chats
- Big Rich the team-sport version
- Lionheart the king, invoked half-seriously
- Ricky Bobby the film joke, for the competitive one
- Rich-Rich doubled, family use
- Hard Ruler the literal Germanic meaning
- Ricks the friend version
- Ricy Richard with the ending people add when they like you.
- Ricie Richard with the ending people add when they like you.
- Ri-ri The opening sound of Richard, doubled.
- Rapid Richard Shares the "R" sound with Richard.
- Royal Richard Shares the "R" sound with Richard.
- Ric The opening of Richard, cut short.
- Rebel Richard Shares the "R" sound with Richard.
- Ricu Richard with the ending people add when they like you.
- Rogue Richard Shares the "R" sound with Richard.
About the name Richard.
Dick is not a shortening of anything. It is a rhyme. Medieval English speakers clipped the name to Rick, then swapped the opening consonant for a matching sound, and Dick was the result. The same process on this name also threw off Hick and Hitch, both long dead as given names and surviving only inside surnames like Hitchcock. The name underneath is Germanic ric, ruler, plus hard, brave, and it arrived with the Normans attached to a crusading king who spent almost none of his reign in England. American use has fallen since the 1940s, and the fall is the steepest in this whole group, accelerated by Dick becoming unusable. It now sounds like a man in his seventies.
Corporate, mid-century and firmly retired, the name of a regional sales manager in 1974. Its formal register survives better than its casual one, since two of the three traditional short forms now carry unwanted freight. Richie is the only one that has kept any warmth, and it sounds distinctly boyish.
Most popular around 1950. Based on US birth records.
- Origin
- Germanic
- Meaning
- brave ruler
- Syllables
- Rich·ard
- Used as
- a boys’ name
Richard around the world.
These are the real forms Richard takes in other languages, which often make excellent nicknames in their own right.
-
Riccardo
Italian
-
Ricardo
Spanish
-
Rikard
Hungarian
-
Ryszard
Polish
Famous people called Richard.
-
Richard Feynman
Nobel physicist and famed teacher
-
Richard Nixon
thirty-seventh US president
-
Richard Wagner
German opera composer
Questions about the name Richard
Why was Dick ever short for Richard? +
Rhyming substitution. Medieval speakers shortened the name to Rick and then replaced the initial consonant with an easier one, a pattern that also produced now-vanished forms like Hick. The practice was widespread in Middle English and has nothing to do with the spelling.
Rich, Rick or Richie? +
Rick dominates among men born in the 1950s and 1960s, Rich reads slightly younger and more neutral, and Richie stays boyish into adulthood. Ricky belongs to a specific mid-century moment and now sounds like a country singer or a sitcom character.
Is Richard a dated name? +
Emphatically. It was a top ten American name for the first half of the twentieth century and has since dropped out of the top two hundred. Almost every bearer you encounter is over fifty, and the name has not shown any sign of the revival others have.
What is the origin of Richard? +
Two Old Germanic elements, ric meaning ruler or power and hard meaning brave or strong. The Franks used the compound, the Normans brought it to England in 1066, and it displaced most of the Anglo-Saxon alternatives within a couple of generations.