Thank you gents for finally clearing this issue up for me. As you know, many naval references are being updated and the older manuals still mention these as side knives. It makes sense that the cargoes of these lost ships would have been carrying knives and razors to the New World, and their discovery on the wrecks lead to the confusion. The same goes for the large groups of un-hilted sword blades often found. However, I'd bet a silver cobb or two that there were pirates/privateers that carried them-
