Hello!
There are various reasons why forenames are shortened.
- Sometimes a five-syllable name such as Alexandria or Maximilian is considered too long.
- You might not like your given name but prefer the shorter version.
- There might be two or more people in your class or workplace with the same name, or
- You may just want to make your name sound friendlier.
There was a trend in the Middle Ages that involved changing the first letter of an abbreviated forename, so that Meg (short for Margaret) became Peg, Molly (short for Mary) became Polly and Rick (Richard) became Dick. Rob (Robert) became Bob and Will (William) became Bill. Ed (Edward) became Ted. Weird, but interesting.
When looking up ancestral records, it’s useful to know that in order to save space on historic documents, common forenames were often shortened, such as Geo for George, Jos for Joseph, My for Mary, Thos for Thomas or Hy for Henry.
Harry is an abbreviation of both Henry and Harold. Hank is also short for Henry, maybe because Henry in Dutch is Hendrick, aka Henk, so just a vowel change to Hank. Chuck is short for Charles, Jack is short for John and Jim for James. Sarah became Sally and Dorothy became Dolly. Nellie and Nell are short for Eleanor, Helen or Ellen. For Elizabeth, there’s Lizzie, Liz, Liza, Beth Libby and Lillibet.
In the 80s, a trend started to change names with ‘r’ to ‘z’, such as Daz or Dazza (Darren), Kezza (Kerry), Jezza (Jeremy), Hazza (Harry), Gazza (Gary) and Bazza (Barry). Girls names also changed, such as Shazza (Sharon), Kazza (Karen or Caroline) or Lozza (Lauren or Laurie). It may have started with the common abbreviation of Charles to Chas or Florence to Flossie.
Happy Puzzling!
