My Dad was a Butch and my brother was a Bubba.

My Dad's name is Melville and my brother's name is David.

Go figure.

Bo is most likely from "beau", which is French for beautiful. The name Beauregard was popular during the 18th and 19th centuries, and a number of names of French-Canadians (including Acadians) had last names such as Flambeaux, or DuBoe. Bo could've stemmed from a shortening of such, along with a regional twang variant of "Hey, boy".

I'll add that I've mainly heard whites refer to each other as Bo and Bubba - Bubba seems to stem from bubble, buddy and brother. Heavy guys ("big bubbles") tend to get called Bubba more.

On a related note, jazz great J.E. "Cannonball" Adderley was originally nicknamed "Cannibal" for his appetite; it was a regional dialect's mispronunciation that led to Cannonball. Likewise, "Keb'Mo" got his name from a Southern style shortening of his actual moniker, Kevin Moore.

So, Bo and Belle might be equivalent southern names of Cajun origin?

Yeah, I'd guess derivation from "beau" (which translates more as "handsome" when applied to humans). Could be Cajun, but there were plenty of non-Acadian French in the Deep South as well.

Hmm .... from wikipedia mostly, no clear pattern:

Bo Jackson, born Vincent Edward Jackson: Jackson, the eighth of ten children, was named after Vince Edwards, his mother's favorite actor. His family described him as a "wild boar", which was eventually shortened to "Bo"

Bo Diddley: born Ellas Otha Bates. He adopted the stage name Bo Diddley, which is probably a southern black slang phrase meaning "nothing at all", as in "he ain't bo diddley". Another source says it was his nickname as a teenage Golden Gloves boxer. The nickname is also linked to the diddley bow, a one-stringed instrument used in the south by mainly black musicians in the fields.


Beauregard Jay "Bo" Duke is a fictional character in the American television series The Dukes of Hazzard, which ran from 1979 to 1985. He was played by John Schneider.

Glenn Edward "Bo" Schembechler: His nickname "Bo" came from his sister's attempts to say "brother" when they were young children.

Mark “Bo” Pelini (no reason given)

Bo Derek (born Mary Cathleen Collins) (no reason given)

Harold Elwin "Bo" Bice, Jr: Bice was nicknamed "Bogart" by his grandmother as a child by his family, and it was later shortened to "Bo."

Charles "Bo" Outlaw (no reason given)

Bo Peep: Who is Bo Peep? Her name tells all. She is Beau Peep, she is looking (peeping) for a beau. She is a young girl looking for a suitor, and she is in an anxiety state because they all seem to have þed. She is a shepherdess, a healthy country girl, a type noted for its lustiness and availability. But not only has she lost the lovers she had, she doesn't know how to going about retrieving them (or Þnding new ones). You have been trying too hard, says the voice to her. Leave them alone, pretend you're not interested, and you will Þnd them come þocking, like sheep.
Bo Peep is the Id, beset by its desires for sexual gratiÞcation and tormented by the absence of any object. The voice is the voice of the ego, struggling to adjust the demands of the pleasure principle to the constraints of the reality principle. It is building a defence mechanism to cope with the stress of the loss of desire.
The narrative is also a dream, of fear and wish fulÞlment. The dreamer fears the loss of sexual desirability as a losing and not knowing how to Þnd. The unconscious attends to this fear by associating letting go with Þnding. It is not searching that will lead to Þnding, but not searching. If she 'leaves them alone' they will come home. And the unconscious displaces the fear with the wish, portraying the arrival of the sheep, wagging their tails behind them. In this last clause everything is uncovered about the dream. There is a little displacement over the location of the tails, of course./6/

Bo is also a nickname for Robert.

I do not know if Bo is strictly Southern, but, as a Southerner by raising, I have never heard of any connection between Bo and Bubba. I thought Bubba came from "brother."

Jack London talks about hobos referring to one another as 'Bo in a chapter of The Road, titled "Hobos That Pass In The Night", circa 1907.

"Bo," like "Bubba," is probably also family shorthand for "brother."

Well, similarly, "Bloo" is commonly short for Blooregard, as in his case:

≡ Click to see image ≡

...in which it's short for Blooregard Q Kazoo.

Hope that helps. I'm sure it does.

I don't know why I post such serious, well-researched answers to such silly questions. Really, people.

Feel no shame, shane. Any opportunity to reference "Foster's" is welcome.

My mother had two brothers, Robert and John, who the kids all called Uncle Bud and Uncle Jack. Since my 20's I just call them the Generic Uncles for their generic nicknames. For the record, Bud did not drink a lot of Bud, and Jack did know Jack.

I think Bubba is Southern for Brother and Sissy is Southern for Sister, nickname wise That's my experience. Bo probably equals Beaux or Beauregard. I know a fellow with a ridiculous French Southern name. It starts with Beauregard, has a middle name that is French for Street, and his last name is the same as Ms. Antoinette's first.

I love this question!

My fiancé is named Bo. In his case, it is short for Robert, although I just asked him and he's not sure where exactly it came from. Most people, when they hear his name but don't see it spelled, seem to assume it is spelled "Beau"

He was born in Kansas but grew up in southern Illinois - not sure if that counts as "southern".

It's a bit of a derail, but I have an Uncle Bud and an Uncle Buddy. Bud's real name is Winfred Earl, and Buddy's real name is Newton Cortez. That's the first and middle names, not the surnames.

I did think of another Bo -- I had an English professor at Virginia Commonwealth University named Boyd Berry, who went by Bo. I don't know if he was a Southerner.

And while we're at it, what about the word "boo" as a term of endearment? Are you guys familiar with that? I can only really remember hearing it in Louisiana.

I've heard "boo-boo" as a term of endearment for small children here in western Canada, also, "bub" as a term of endearment for one's spouse (usually mutual,as in "Bub?" "Yes Bub?" "Wanna go to a movie?" "Sure, Bub"). A first generation English-Lancashire family with about 50 members who I know all do this.

taz, I have a friend in Louisiana who calls his friends "boo."

The popularity of "Beauregard" in the South is almost certainly due to Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard (from Louisiana), who commanded the Confederate troops at Fort Sumter.

I call people Boo.

There was a cafeteria worker at my Southern university (SE Va.) who called EVERYONE "boo". Earnestine, we loved you!

There was that terrible duet "My Boo" with Usher and Alicia Keys a few years back, but I have a pair of friends who started calling each other "boo" before then.

I grew up with a boy named Bo; his family was not from the south, nor was it a nickname.

In college I knew a guy named Beaux. It wasn't a nickname. It was his legal name.

We were in school in New Orleans, but he wasn't local. I don't think.

A lady I used to work with had a son named Beau. Not shortened or anything, that was his name.

I thought it was short for Beauford?

i'll see you a Beaumont and raise you a Bob.
That Brad was short for Bradley use to crack me up when i was nine.