William is the anglisied version of Guillumme, an old French name. It appears that the changes were part of the English adapting them to their own language.
Apparently one impetus there were others in the trend for letter swapping at that particular time was a dislike amongst the native English for the harsh Norman French "r". I thought it was weird too. My grandpa's name is William but every one of his friends and my other grandparents call him Bill or Billy. I heard from somewhere that Richard was shortened to Dick.
Explore Wikis Community Central. The same thing happened to the name Martha. It started with the nickname Math, which moved to Matty, then switched to Patty, and eventually Patsy. Thomas Jefferson's wife, Martha, was known as Patty. Neither Patsy nor Patty had anything to do with Patricia. In a final twist, another common nickname for Margaret was Daisy.
Don't even try to get there using the rhyming method. This one was adopted by educated Brits who recognized that the French word for daisy, the flower, was Marguerite. A few nicknames are attributed to baby talk. Little children have a notoriously hard time pronouncing the letter "R" which often comes out sounding like an "L. The rhyming phenomenon also takes Mary from Molly to Polly. Some dialects of English used to use "mine" in place of "my. It starts with folks saying "mine Anne," which got shortened to Nan and cute-ified into Nanny, Nansy and then Nancy.
You can see the "mine" phenomenon with other names that start with a vowel. Edward goes from "mine Edward" to "mine Ed" to Ned. Ellen goes from "mine Ellen" to "mine Elly" to Nelly. There are a couple of possible explanations for this one, Evans says. The first has to do with a popular "pet" form of names from Medieval England where folks added "kin" as a suffix. William was Wilkin. Peter was Perkin. Again, you can still see these nicknames today in surnames like Wilkinson and Perkins.
John, Evans says, would have been changed to Jenkin. That could have easily been shortened to Jenk which is a quick trip to Jack. Another theory points back to the Norman invasion and the arrival of the name Jacques, which is actually the French form of James, not John.
But the cultural mingling of Jenk and Jacques could have been enough to produce Jack from John. Sign up for our Newsletter! Not only is it popular in the English language, but it has its equivalent in other traditions as well. Since , the name William has consistently ranked in the top 20 names for boys in the United States.
It has continually been a popular boy name, enjoying Top 10 status during the first 75 years of data collection by the Social Security Administration. William started slowly climbing the charts again after that and is currently ranked No. There are many variations of the name William in other languages. These include:. Other boy names with English royal traditions:. Other boy names starting with W:.
Common nicknames for William include:. Notable Williams range from British kings to American presidents and Hollywood film and television stars. The popularity of the name William in the English language likely began with the invasion of England in by William the Conqueror, who became the first Norman monarch of England. Still searching for the perfect baby name? Check out these related baby name lists for even more options:. Get diet and wellness tips to help your kids stay healthy and happy.
Social Security Administration. Get Ready for Baby: Popularity of a Name. Published Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for VerywellFamily. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page.
These choices will be signaled globally to our partners and will not affect browsing data. We and our partners process data to: Actively scan device characteristics for identification. I Accept Show Purposes. Table of Contents View All. Table of Contents. What Does William Mean?
0コメント