-zza

suffix

Forms nicknames, especially of personal names.

“Barry + -zza → Bazza”

Meanings

suffix
  1. AustraliaNew ZealandUKForms nicknames, especially of personal names.

    Barry + -zza → Bazza

    2 more examples

    Sharon + -zza → Shazza

    Charlotte + -zza → Chazza

Origin

Originally Australian. From a mutation (specifically a zetacism) of the underlying rhotic consonant /ɹ/ to /z/ (see -z), combined with -a, a non-rhotic pronunciation spelling of -er (the Oxford colloquial clipping suffix). The template was popularized in print during the 1960s and 1970s by the Australian comedian Barry Humphries, whose satirical comic strip The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (first published in 1964 in the British magazine Private Eye) yielded the eponymous archetype Bazza, cementing the suffix in the Commonwealth lexicon.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

-zza. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/-zza

MLA

“-zza.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/-zza. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “-zza,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/-zza.

Source: -zza on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.