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deaconB said

Does dick really come from "puddick"?  What does OED say?

The OxED has this:

Forms: ME podding, ME poddyng, ME poodyng (in a late copy), ME punding (transmission error), ME 16–17 puding, ME–15 poddynge, ME–15 poding, ME–15 podyng, ME–15 puddyng, ME–15 puddynge, ME– pudding, 15 podynge, 15 pooddyng, 15 pooding, 15–16 puddinge, 15– pudden (now regional and nonstandard), 15– puddin (now regional and nonstandard), 18 puddeen (Irish English (Wexford)), 18– pudd'n (regional and nonstandard); also Sc. pre-17 powding, pre-17 puddein, pre-17 puddine, pre-17 puddyng, pre-17 pudyn, pre-17 17 puden, pre-17 17 puding, 17 pudin. N.E.D. (1909) also records a form puddingh.(Show Less)

Etymology: Probably < Anglo-Norman bodeyn, bodin sausage (second half of the 13th cent. or earlier), (in plural) intestines, entrails (1396 in plural bodeyns , with reference to animal intestines; compare Old French, Middle French, French boudin sausage, blood sausage (c1270), (now regional: chiefly Normandy) intestines, entrails, (now slang) belly, stomach (of a person) (1568 or earlier); further etymology uncertain and disputed: see note), with alteration of the ending after nouns in -ing (compare -ing suffix3). Earlier currency of the English word is apparently implied by post-classical Latin pudingum (c1245 apparently in sense ‘sausage’ in a British source; probably < English).
The initial p- of the English word is apparently not paralleled in French (although see below for two possible Anglo-Norman counterexamples), and would show an irregular phonological development. It has been suggested that the voiceless initial may result from the influence of other words with which the word may have been associated semantically in English (see below), although it should be noted that most of these are first attested much later and the semantic connection is not close. For a possible parallel compare later purrell n., and perhaps also earlier purse n.

It is unclear whether examples such as the following are to be regarded as showing the Middle English word or (otherwise unattested) variants with initial p- of the Anglo-Norman word (or perhaps borrowings from Middle English into Anglo-Norman):

c1300 Glosses to De Nominibus Utensilium of Alexander Neckam (Linc. 132) in T. Hunt Teaching & Learning Lat. in 13th-cent. Eng. (1991) II. 71 Tu(n)cetis : de puudincques.

c1300 Glosses to Comm. to Garland's Dict. (Linc. 132) in T. Hunt Teaching & Learning Lat. in 13th-cent. Eng. (1991) II. 150 Truceta vel tunseta : gallice puddins.

As for the ulterior etymology of the French word, Französisches etymol. Wörterbuch s.v. *bod- suggests that French boudin is formed < a Romance base *bod- denoting bulging, swollen objects, which is of imitative origin, and cites a number of apparent (largely regional) Romance cognates in similar senses; however, this view is not generally accepted. In spite of their semantic and (at least superficial) formal similarity, it is unclear whether Italian (now arch. or regional: northern) boldone blood sausage (a1556; of uncertain origin) and classical Latin botulus sausage (see botulism n.) are etymologically related.

An alternative etymology derives the word < a Germanic base (of imitative origin) taken to be shown also by Old English puduc wen, swelling (rare) + -ing suffix3. (Old English puduc would thus be formed from the same base + -ock suffix). It has frequently been suggested that the same Germanic base is also seen in pod n.1, pud n.2, podge n., pudge n.2, English regional (southern) poud boil, ulcer (recorded from the 18th–early 20th cent. by Eng. Dial. Dict. at that entry), as well as in other Germanic words, e.g. Dutch regional poddik thick soft mass, kind of pudding, shortish child, short fat person, Middle Low German puddich (rare) fat, corpulent (German regional (Low German: Bremen) puddig thick, stumpy), German regional (Low German: Bremen) pudde- (in pudde-wurst large sausage, especially black pudding, also (fig.) fat person), (Westphalia) puddek dumpling, sausage, (Mecklenburg) p?den boil, ulcer, swollen body part, (Berlin, Brandenburg) puddel small person, small fat child, especially a child just beginning to walk, (Pomerania) puddik swollen gland. However, in spite of their phonological and semantic similarities, it is unclear whether any of these words are etymologically related, and, with the exception of puduc , they are all first attested much later (in a number of cases very much later).

With sense 2 compare Middle French, French boudin stomach, belly (1568 or earlier, with reference to humans; now slang).

With sense 8 compare French boudin fuse used to cause an explosion in a mine (1680 in this sense), saucisson kind of fuse (1623; lit. ‘sausage’).

In pudding-ale n. at Compounds 2, probably so called on account of the ale being thick like pudding; compare penny ale n. at penny n. Compounds 2.

The English word was borrowed into many other European languages. Compare French pudding (1688; also pouding (1754)), Spanish budín (19th cent.; also budin , pudín , pudin ), Portuguese pudim (1799), Italian pudding (1823; compare earlier puddinga puddingstone: see puddingstone n.), Dutch pudding (1661 as †podding ), German Pudding (17th cent.), Danish budding (early 18th cent.; also (rare) pudding (c1800)), Swedish budding (1682; now regional), buding (c1710; now regional), pudding (c1710)), and also Irish putóg intestine, pudding, Scottish Gaelic putag pudding.

The word is apparently attested earlier as a byname and surname: Agelword Pudding (c1100), Aluredus Pudding (1176), Willelmus Pudding (1202), Stephano Pudding (c1225), etc. However, it is possible that at least some of these instances show a patronymic formed from the Old English byname Puda . See further G. Tengvik Old English Bynames (1938) 145. (On surnames which have been suggested as showing very much earlier currency of puddy adj. see discussion at that entry.)