This is why his name is Chuck Connors
Chuck-a to Lucas McCain.
Did you know that you've been calling Lucas McCain by the wrong name this whole time?
It turns out that the name "Chuck," belonging to one Chuck Connors, is actually a nickname. Connors' full name is actually Kevin Joseph Aloysius Connors. It's quite a mouthful, so one might assume that the actor landed on Chuck as a nickname to shorten things up.
However, the name actually came during Connors' baseball career. Connors spoke to the Copley News Service, where he described how the nickname manifested itself on the baseball diamond. He said, "I'd be at first base and I'd be talking it up and hollering at our pitcher, 'Come on, baby, chuck-a, chuck-a!' I meant to throw it in there, kid. So they started calling me 'Chuck' and it stuck."
It's a good nickname, but not one that you'd immediately understand if you had spent your life knowing Mr. Connors as Kevin. This was the case for Connors' mother, who pressed him one day when she heard the nickname.
Connors recounted, "My mother, bless her, she's gone now, would say to me, in her Brooklyn Irish accent, 'Kevin, why in heaven's name are these people calling you 'Chuck?' And I said, 'Mom, Chuck is just an appellation.'"
He continued, "'And her eyes would get very flinty, and she'd say, 'Appellation, is it now? Don't you get uppity with me, Kevin Joseph Aloysius Connors!"
Obviously, the nickname stuck beyond baseball, as we commonly know him as Chuck Connors, but let's be honest, a mother upset with her child is always allowed first name privileges.
Here's to you, Kevin Joseph Aloysius!