I'm 'Arry the Fifth, I Am

[steepholm]

Okay, here's a non-festive puzzle especially for non-festive people. In Shakespeare's Henry IV and V plays Prince/King Henry is frequently called 'Hal'. And sometimes Harry, as in 'God for Harry, England and St George!'.

The idea is that Hal and Harry are both short for Henry. But to be honest I've never come across this contraction anywhere other than in reference to English kings (not that I've known many Henrys irl). In my mind, Harry is normally short for Harold.

Hal/Harry wasn't Shakespeare's invention - Henry is also called Harry in the earlier Famous Victories, and Henry VIII was certainly nicknamed Harry ("Harry our king is hunting for to bring his stag to bay", etc.). But when did that contraction for Henry come in? And when (if it has) did it die out?

I've not looked into the matter, but it occurs to me that it would be kind of cool if the usage derived from Henry V himself, who was the first king to make a concerted effort to move court language from French to English. Given that Henry is a quintessentially French name, might he have been tempted to connect it to a quintessentially English one - i.e. Harold?

Comments

[kalypso]

Oh, I think of it the other way round - that "Harry" is an Anglicised form of the French "Henri", as the French vowel is probably slightly closer to an A than any of the possible English variations on E, and the N gets a bit swallowed up. And I suppose once you've got to Harry it's a short jump to Hal, via that speech impediment where Rs and Ls get mixed up (there must be a word for it, like lisp but not lisp).

And, similarly, though more pertinently to me, I assume that Harriet comes directly from Henriette rather than Henrietta.

[nixwilliams]

My family had a tradition of firstborn sons of firstborn sons being called Henry. So, there was Henry, then there was Henry "Harry", then Henry R___, Henry M___ and Henry J___. The later ones used their second names as their first names. I'm guessing the Harry would have been mid-19th century, so it was still going then.

[steepholm]

Interesting. My family did the same thing with 'Weeden' for several generations... I'm kind of glad they stopped, though.

It's apparent from the replies I've had here at on the equivalent post at LJ that I've been living under a rock and Henrys are being Harrified even unto the present day!

[nixwilliams]

Yeah, the Henrys stopped with me... escape by transness?!