13 June 2018

"Becky" can be a perjorative term. And it's a "hypocorism."

You learn something every day.  This week a fascinating podcast at This American Life taught me some of the ramifications of calling a woman a "Becky."  I had to look up the history.  This from 2016 following the term's use by Beyoncé:
"For years, 'Becky' has been used as a general reference for a particular type of White woman," Damon Young wrote in Very Smart Brothas. "There are several theories on its etymology, but the one that makes the most sense is that it stems from the first line of 'Baby Got Back.'”

One use of "Becky" is simply to describe a woman considered beneath the speaker's level. The other is to refer to "a white woman who is clueless, who is kind of racist, [and] who makes statements without knowing what she's saying," said Whitehead.
Others said "Becky" is used to describe white women just because it's a stereotypically white-sounding name
USA Today suggested some literary counterparts:


Fast-forward to 1876, and along comes Becky Thatcher seducing Tom Sawyer [top photo]...

In 1938, Daphne du Maurier sets up the ex that will haunt us all in her novel Rebecca...



I will wager dollars to doughnuts that nobody ever called Rebecca de Winter "Becky," and I think Becky Sharp and Becky Thatcher had nothing to do with the current usage.

The podcast that started my exploration is My Effing First Amendment ("The Brawl on the Mall"), about an incident at the University of Nebraska in which a liberal faculty member called a student supporting Turning Point USA a "neo-fascist Becky."  I highly recommend listening to all three segments of the podcast.  For those who prefer to read, there is a comprehensive report in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

And now to end with an interesting, useful finding.  "Becky" is an example of hypocorism - a diminutive form of a name (the word comes from the Greek for "child-talk" (cool).  The Wikipedia link has a list of too-many-to-count examples from over 30 languages.  Your name is probably there; mine is (I've been a hypocorism my whole life without knowing it...)

Top photo: Becky Thatcher and Tom Sawyer


  1. That Wikipedia entry does not have a subentry for Ukrainian names. Whatta a buncha Beckyyushchyky!

    1. Maybe you could find something in the Ukranian Wikipedia -


  2. There's a Silk Almond milk commercial that begins with a milkman driving next to a white woman jogging. He says, "Hey, Becky". Then tells her that protein goes great with jogging, and offers her "nut milk".

    I was amazed this made it past however many reviews must happen for major ad campaigns without anyone noting the double-entendre of offering nut milk to Becky (cf Plies from USA Today article). Then I realized, white people still don't know about Becky!



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