Why is Bill the short name for William?

Answer 1

William has several variants: Bill, Billy, & Will - the name is of Old English origin and means: helmet protection.

This nickname William to Bill is best understood by comparison with a whole HOST of nicknames that originated at about the same time, but there may also be a good PHONETIC explanation for it:

LETTER-SWAPPING

Will(iam) > Bill was, in fact, part of a great 13th-14th century TREND of swapping some other letter for the original first letter of a name. Other names resulting from this process include: Polly from Molly, Bob from Rob (from Robert), Hick and Dick (from Richard), Hodge from Roger.

For other forms of "letter swapping" to create nicknames, and a variety of other methods by which English nicknames developed see:

http://www.geocities.com/edgarbook/names...

Notice that many of the original names from which these nicknames were formed were NORMAN FRENCH names. It appears that the changes were part of the English adapting them to their own language.

Apparently ONE impetus in the letter swapping at that particular time was a dislike amongst the native English for the harsh Norman French "r". (Note how many nicknames made substitutions for r's -- not only at the beginning of words [Richard, Robert], but in the middle of them -- Mary > Molly, Sarah > Sally/Sadie, Dorothy > Dolly; Harold/Harry (> Hal).

Also note some of the 'swapped in' sounds that were commonly used - esp. D, B and H.

See also this article on the nickname "Hick"

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mdic...

PHONETICS

Now SOME of the changes in the sounds of these nicknames (including such things as the R > L in Mary > Molly) began with sounds that were RELATED to the original sounds in at least SOME of the names. That may well be the case for "Will(iam)" > "Bill".

Note that the consonant "W" sound is formed by placing your two lips together (called a "bi-labial" sound), and so is "B" (as also P). The main difference between them is that in the B the airflow is completed STOPPED to pronounce it, while "W" does NOT stop the air.

(There are examples in many other languages of this sort of W > B shift, even in the language as a whole. One ANCIENT example, for what it's worth, is from the ancient Semitic language of Babylonia [called Akkadian]. The word for "man" [or 'gentleman'] was originally "awilum". But in some later dialects it become "abilu(m)".)

One might speculate that in some handful of key cases there was a very obvious phonetic shift to some of these sounds (such as P, B, D, H) for some names. THEN those sounds were "borrowed" to swap in other names where no phonetic shift took place.

Answer 2

It's The Same Thing