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Of course the Bond character's name isn't a nick, but the name Kissy isn't original there either. Maybe the writer thought it was.

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I always thought Kissy was a variant of Kizzie. Let's see ... where'd I get that idea ... Kissie is listed in my name dictionary (Dunkling & Gosling New Am Dict of FN 1983) as a "variant of Keziah" and under Kizzy it says:

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Made famous in modern times by Alex Haley's novel Roots. In the book the name is explained by the hero Kunta as "you sit down" or "you stay put" in the Mandinka language. Kunta sees this as meaning that "unlike Bell's previous two babies, this child would never get sold away." But Kizzy, Kizzzie, Kissie, etc. were common slave names and are far more likely to have derived from Keziah.

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Kissy is a place name in Sierra Leone (where Mandinka happens to be spoken) according to wikipedia, but that could be a coincidence.

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- mirfak

This message was edited 12/19/2012, 9:06 AM