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Why do some Spanish diminutives not closely match the names they're short for? Jose has Pepe, Francisco has Pancho, Paco, and Curro, and Jesus has Chucho and Chuy. I assume there's some explanation here. Where did these nicknames come from?
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Names like this are very difficult to track down. They seem sort of like nursery forms of names that take more effort to pronounce. Bob and Bill are similar in English. Pepe might come from the "se" sound. All the Francisco names seem to be coming from the i, s and o. And the Jesus ones from the u. I think it looks like soft sounds get a C-H and hard sounds a P.
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