I’ll ask my Mexican husband in the morning to be sure, but I think in Mexico chicharo is pea, at least that is what rings in my head with my MIL’s voice saying it. I’m pretty sure this particular soccer player’s dad also played soccer and his dad’s nickname was Chicharo, so his son is Chicharito (little Chicharo). What I don’t know is why his dad was called Chicharo. The Mexicans are big on nicknames. Not just in soccer, but in general.

He plays in the English Premier Football League & wears that nickname on his shirt, his real name is Javier Hernandez Balcazar.
As far as I know, although this is just something I picked up while listening to TV commentary & not an official translation, Chicharito means “little pea”

Yes, as @ucme stated it means Little Pea.

I go with “El Chícharito” as the nickname for Javier Hernandez Balcazar, as above. The root word “Chícharo” means “pea” and the suffix “ito” means “small” or “little..

As spelled in the OP, “El Chicharrito” actually means “The Little Mackerel” from the root “chicharro” meaning “Mackerel”, and the suffix “ito” meaning “small” or “little”, as above.

BTW, did you know that a “burrito” actually means “little mule”?

Just thought i’d add, he is known as little pea because like his father, he has green eyes.

Thank you all for your very informative answers. Thank you, @ucme, for the detail about the green eyes!
I thought I heard the Mexican announcers say “chicharrito” (with double r), so that’s what I searched for, but “chicharito” for “little green pea” does make sense. In any case, I don’t find either word in my dictionary. I must not have a very good dictionary. Does anyone know if these are uniquely Mexican terms?

If memory serves guisante is pea. I don’t know if Mexico is the only country that uses chicharo. It wouldn’t surprise me, as far as I know Mexico is the only country that uses torta for sandwich, all other countries say torta for cake. Another one is Mexico uses elevador for elevator, most other countries I know of use ascensor. Hell, my Mexican relatives say lunch for lunch LOL.

Chicharito would not likely be in the dictionary, You would look up chicharo. Are you sure you looked far enough in your dictionary? Does your dictionary have reverse look up in English? Did you look up pea? My English Spanish dictionary actually often says when a word is unique to certain countries. The book is in storage right now or I would look up chicharo for you to see what it says.

My dictionary translates pea as guisante, arveja, and chícharo. In Costa Rica, the more formal word that was used for pea was arveja. But there was also a localism, or slang if you will, for peas and that was “petipoás”, which I think was a corruption of the French petit pois.