Harry

Harry began as the everyday English way of saying Henry. Behind Henry stands a Germanic name built from words for home and ruler, which is how Harry came to mean home ruler. The English took the formal Henry and wore it down into something shorter for daily use, and Harry was the result.

For a long stretch the two names were almost interchangeable. When Shakespeare wrote Henry V, he had the king rally his soldiers as Harry: "Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'" Several English kings named Henry answered to Harry among their own people. The name belonged to farmers and princes alike.

Short and quick. Harry has no long ceremony to it. A child called Harry on a Polish class register sits easily beside a Henryk, both drawing on the old Germanic sense of the one who rules the home.