(also 7–8 -ee, 7– -ey), used to form pet names and familiar diminutives. The forms -y and -ie are now almost equally common in proper names as such, but in a few instances one or other spelling is preferred, as Annie, Betty, Sally (rather than Anny, Bettie, Sallie); in the transferred applications of these, as jemmy, tommy, dicky, and the like, -y prevails; in general hypocoristic forms -ie is the favorite spelling after Scottish usage, as dearie, mousie. The use of -ey is subject to the same rules as for -Y suffix1.
The use of this suffix in pet forms of proper names is found in Sc. as early as 1400; and in the 15th and 16th centuries instances become frequent; examples are Cryste, Cristi (f. Cristin, Cristian), Pery (f. Pere Peter), Sandy (f. Sandre for Alisandre Alexander), Jamy (f. James), Michy (f. Michel), Richy (f. Richard), Roby (f. Robert), Edi (f. Ede, Ade Adam), Anny (f. Anne), Bessy (f. Elisabeth). Such names were prob. modeled orig. upon forms like Davy, Mathy (= OF. Davi, Mathé), which have the appearance of being pet forms of David, Mathou. (Many have survived in Sc. surnames, as Christie, Eadie, Pirrie, Ritchie, Christison, Mathieson, Robison; Davy occurs as a surname in English use in the early 14th cent.)
The formation was greatly extended in Scottish and English use; whence Annie, BILLY, Carrie (f. Caroline), CHARLIE or CHARLEY, Fanny (f. Frances), JACKY, JENNY, JIMMY, JOHNNY, NANNY, Nellie (f. Ellen), PATTY, Reggie (f. Reginald), TOMMY, Willie. Many female names have corresponding forms in Du. names with the suffix -je, as in huisje little house, f. huis HOUSE sb.1; e.g., Betty, Elsie, Hetty, Katy, Lottie, Matty, Sally correspond to Du. Betje, Elsje, Jetje, Kaatje, Lotje, Matje, Sellie; but there is no evidence of historical contact.
The earliest recorded instances of the use of such proper names as appellatives are Scottish and belong to the beginning of the 16th century: viz. Lowrie (f. Lowrens Laurence) used for ‘fox’; Katy and Kitty (f. Katherine), with the meaning ‘lass, wench,’ tending to a specifically depreciatory sense, ‘wanton, loose woman,’ which senses belong also to the 18th century Molly and Nanny (as in Nanny-house brothel); a few female names, viz., Molly and (dialectally) Peggy, have been used to designate an effeminate type of man.
The application of the female names to birds dates, according to our evidence, from the close of the 16th century; the wren is designated by Kitty and (more commonly) Jenny; in 1616 Ben Jonson calls a parrot Polly; in modern dialects Peggy is applied to various warblers and the pied wagtail, and Betty to the hedge-sparrow. Then, in the course of the 17th century, these names came to be applied to various mechanical contrivances, among which machines for spinning processes and the burglar’s jemmy are prominent. This transference of application is illustrated by Betty (a burglar’s jemmy, 1700), Jenny (in SPINNING-JENNY, 1783), Jinny (a stationary engine at a mine), Peggy (a washing-tub dolly, in various dialects).
Among male names the following are typical: Johnny is used for fellow, chap, Jemmy for the burglar’s weapon, Billy for a roving machine; Bobby, Charley, Dicky, Geordie, Jacky, Jockey, Tommy exhibit a great variety of modes of application.
The first known instance of the application of the suffix to a common noun is LADDIE which appears in 1546 in the form laddy, used by John Bale; but there is no evidence until the 18th century of the generalization of -y for pet diminutives. Early instances are dummie (1595), grannie (1663), dearie (1681), mousie (1693, Sc.); laddie, lassie, and sweetie were used by Allan Ramsay, and these, with Burns’s birdie and mousie, helped to popularize such formations in English generally; hence the appearance in the late 18th and early 19th century of cooky, doggie, froggy, mannie, slavey. In blacky and darky = ‘nigger’ there remains something of the status of a proper name; cf. Fatty as a nickname. Bookie for bookmaker is a formation of a rare type; cf. nighty for nightdress.
1885. Eng. Illustr. Mag., April, 509/2. No rowdy ring, but a few quiet and well-known ‘bookies,’ who were ready enough to lay the odds to a modest fiver.
There are two words that are generally held to contain this suffix, viz., baby (late 14th c.) and puppy (late 15th c.). With baby may perhaps be coupled daddy and mammy, although the evidence for these is not earlier than the 16th century; the pairs babe and baby, dad and daddy, mam and mammy, may have resulted from different phonetic reductions of original reduplicated forms *baba (cf. BABAN), *dada, *mama. The source of puppy (spelt popi in the Bk. St. Albans) is doubtful; pup is a back-formation from it.
