Lucy Lockett

[Drusilla]

My six year old daughter has a friend called Lucy and her mother' pet name for her is Lucy Lockett. This name rings a bell and I wondered if the name is taken from a character in an old play? If so, which one ?

[CEC]

It is a nursery rhyme. Lucy Locket lost her pocket, Kitty Fisher found it, there was not a penny in it, just a ribbon round it.

[dotjhawkes]

The Beggar's Opera.

[jno]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Locket - not sure if I believe it, though.

[jno]

I've just looked up the Opies' book on nursery rhymes, which is the most authoritative, and they mention all these theories but say nobody knows for sure. It's in The Beggar's Opera, but the name may have already been known before that. There's a portrait by Reynolds of a Kitty Fisher at Petworth house, but there may have been more than one woman with this name. The shortness of the Wikipedia entry suggests it too is just speculation rather than a proven theory.