Paco and Pancho

You must have listened to BBC's History Hour on Saturdays.

Sorry, do not have an answer to your question.

Quite a few names beginning with F in Spanish have a diminutive starting in P. In English even - Pip for Philip. And discard parts of consonantal clusters. in forming diminutives. For example Poto and Pocho are diminutives of Alfonso, and Pico is a diminutive of Federico.

(I don't know whether it is relevant, but we can note neither Basque nor major native American languages have F, and when in Guatemala I met people who pronounced Fs as Ps. Basque doesn't seem to like pr as a consonantal cluster either, and I expect the same is true of major native american languages.)

And quite a lot of diminutives of names in Spanish end -cho. Eg Poncho for Alfonso, Pencho for Fulgencio.

So Paco and Pancho are within the range of the kind of changes you get in forming pet names in Spanish. Doesn't need that folk etymological explanation.

I spent a fiar amount of time with Google Translate, looking at various Spanish language sites.

A lot of them discuss Paco and Pepe. Pepe is diminutive for José. Supposedly it came from St. Joseph, who was designated "Pater Putativus" or PP. (Putative father of Jesus).

The sources were about half & half as to whether those Latin designations were the source or not. The ones that looked more authoritative to me seemed to go with baby talk or a toddler trying to pronounce his own name. One says it may have derived from Paquito as a diminutive.

Some say that Pepe came from Catalan Josep(e) or Italian Giuseppe, which does make sense.

A slightly different version of Pater Communitatis is that the name Francisco was written Phrancisco and abbreviated PHCO.

Then there is: En italiano, PACO es el acrónimo de Poverello d'Assisi Casto e Obbediente ( Pobre de Asís Casto y Obediente), referido a San Francisco de Asís. However, I only found a couple of references to that, so I think it's even less likely. (St. Francis was indeed called "Poverello d'Assisi.")

I found only a few hits on "Pater Communitatis" that weren't about St. Francis & Paco. Mostly in Latin. No definitive mention that Francis was ever called that.

Some say that Pepe came from Catalan Josep(e) or Italian Giuseppe, which does make sense.

It is also consistent with the general observation that lots of diminutives turn Fs into Ps in Spanish.

In Czech, the diminutive of Josef is Pepa. In Italian, they talk of Beppo and Beppe. In Basque the name is Joseba or Josepe.

It seems clear that Pepe doesn't need any post hoc folk etymology to explain it either.

I'm glad, in a way, to see that English-speakers aren't the only ones making up fake etymologies from acronyms.

Peppe and Peppino are nicknames for Giuseppe in Italian. Formed by reduplicating the end of the word. I'd be surprised if Pepe was formed otherwse, and I'd be surprised if anyone can find a record of St Joseph being titled Pater Putativus earlier than whatever the first record of Pepe is.

I found St. Joseph, Pater Putativus, in the mid 18th C. I'm sure it's older, but for some odd reason I'm not eager to rummage around European monasteries looking at manuscripts in Latin.

Not much luck on Pepe. No pre-1800 hits in Spanish on Ngram.

Have you got a link to that 18th century pater putativus, nutrax?

Be my guest

Joseph Pater putativus

Jofeph erat Pater putativus Chrifti

Jofeph, qui fuit pater putativus Chrifli.

If the links don;'t work, go to Google Books, search for "pater putativus" (in quotes). Got to Search tools and set a custom time range. I used 1/1/1600 to 12/31/1750.

Just now I changed it to 1/1/1500 to 1/1/1700 and got some 17th C. hits. A lot harder to read IOSEPH Christi Pater putativus fuit

Thanks to this thread, I am now stuck with an earworm Pnacho and Lefty

The etymolgy of Paco and Pancho is unknown. I mean none of the theories, rumours, hypothesis... about it has enough evidence(s) supporting it as to consider it the right/valid one.

What brought this to mind was a BBC piece on the bullfighter Paquirri, Francisco Rivera, gored to death in the ring in the early 80s. Is that -irri a normal Andalusian diminutive?

I'm not an expert in nicknames but the bullfighter you quote isn't the only Andalucian guy called Paquirri. Guitar player and singer Paquirri Guanter (aka Paquirri el Guanté) comes to my mind. However, I'd say Curro is more frequent in Andalucía as nickname for people called Francisco (e.g.: Curro Romero). Paco is also used in Andalucía (e.g.: Paco Vegara)...

neither Basque nor major native American languages have F

I don't have enough knowledge about native American languages but Basque has F.