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Richards often get called Dick - my father always did - but I never really thought much about how Richard could translate to Dick. But yesterday I was reading about how studying pet names for people can help with etymological research and came across the idea of "rhyming nicknames", the result of a process like this

name -> shortened form -> rhyming nickname

So we get Richard -> Rich -> Dick, it's as simple as that

Obviously I knew about ordinary shortenings and diminutive pet names (e.g. Thomas -> Tom ->Tommy) and I've also been intrigued by the fact that names whose shortened form would end in 'R' are modified to end in 'L', e.g. Terence becomes Tel and Harold becomes Hal (probably because "Ter" and "Har" don't trip off the tongue so easily). Another such is Chas.

We can also shorten names from the other end, so Richard can be Hud and William can become Liam for example.

However I hadn't really twigged about the rhyming nicknames but there are lots of them and they seem to have been popular in Middle English. Here are some common examples:

Richard  (again) -> Rick -> Hick

Edward -> Ed ->Ted (or Ned)

William -> Will -> Bill

Here's a surprising one:

Margaret -> Molly -> Polly

or

Margaret -> Meg -> Peg

Finally we have 

Robert -> Rob (possibly via Robin, a diminutive)  -> Bob (or Hob) and Hob is the first element in Hobgoblin, a kind of mischievous elf. Robin Goodfellow, a kind of goblin and Puck-like character, became Hob the goblin.

Goblin is interesting in itself, it seems to be from the same root as German Kobold,  and became the name of Element 27.  Element 28 another troublemaker.