Shimmy is a Jewish nickname for Shimon or Simon, meaning he has heard.
Shimmy is a diminutive of Shimon — the Hebrew name usually rendered in English as Simeon or Simon — from the root "shama," meaning "to hear" or "God has heard." Shimon was one of the twelve sons of Jacob and thus one of the eponymous tribes of Israel; Shimon bar Kokhba led the last major Jewish revolt against Rome in 132 CE; and Shimon HaTzaddik (Simon the Just) was among the last survivors of the Great Assembly who shaped early rabbinic tradition. The name has been a cornerstone of Jewish male naming for over three millennia.
Within Ashkenazi Jewish communities, where Yiddish inflected the pronunciation of Hebrew names and diminutives became terms of endearment woven into everyday life, Shimmy emerged as the natural affectionate form of Shimon — just as Moishy served for Moses, or Yanky for Yankev (Jacob). These Yiddish-inflected pet names carry a warmth specific to Eastern European Jewish family culture: they are the names called across a crowded kitchen, not the names inscribed in a prayer book. As a standalone given name, Shimmy retains this quality of intimacy and familial closeness.
The name gained an unrelated cultural association in the early 20th century through the Shimmy, a jazz-era dance of the 1910s and 1920s characterized by rapid shoulder shaking. The dance's name comes from a different source (possibly from "chemise"), but the phonetic overlap gives the name an unexpected vivacity in cultural memory. Today, Shimmy as a given name sits almost exclusively within traditional Jewish religious communities, where it functions both as an everyday name and as a living connection to Yiddish-speaking generations.