Description

Handy Guide: English Given Names: Popularity, Spelling Variants, Diminutives and Abbreviations

Carol Baxter, 2019, Publisher: Unlock the Past
8 pages, Digital (.pdf) Download Only

The names of our ancestors are the gateway to tracing our family history. Without a surname and a given name, we hit an insurmountable brick wall. Thus is it important that we can decipher given name abbreviations, recognise diminutives and assess the popularity or rarity of a name.

This Handy Guide is filled with tables which enable you to find the “very common”and “çommon” English male and female names from 1700s-early 1900s. Each name lists spelling variants as well as diminutives and abbreviations.

This will prove incredibly useful not only when reading old documents or letters which have the names abbreviated, but also to give you clues on alternate spellings of names you could be looking for.