charlie

A king's name wandered into English wearing a tiny, informal nickname, and then slang grabbed it by the collar and dragged it everywhere. Charles itself goes back to Germanic *karlaz, just a plain old word for a man or husband — no silk robe, no crown, just a fellow. By the 1800s, English had already turned Charlie into a beard term for a King Charles I-style goatee, a night watchman, even a fox; language, as usual, could not resist giving the same name to half the creatures and characters in town. Then the 20th century made it wartime shorthand: in Vietnam, U.S. troops used Victor Charlie for Viet Cong, and Charlie became enemy-speak with a clipped radio crackle. That same nickname could also mean a fool in British slang or cocaine in drug slang, which is what happens when one cozy proper name gets passed around the room too many times and comes back in disguise.