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From: rapaport@ellie.UUCP (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Re: where did the 'B' come from?
Message-ID: <419@ellie.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-May-85 15:42:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: ellie.419
Posted: Tue May 14 15:42:23 1985
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Organization: SUNY/Buffalo Computer Science
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> > I've been wondering for a while what the entymology of the name "Bill" is.
> > I can see Will deriving from William, but where'd the 'B' come from?
> > 
> > -eli
> 
> Just a convention - perhaps related to the "B" in boy.  Consider "Bob"
> for "Robert." Some people think "Bob" sounds better than "Rob."
> 
> Some of my young chess friends used to do this to everybody
> indiscriminately.  For instance, a veteran chess player named "Erich"
> (short e, hard ch) became "Berich" (long e, soft ch)!
> -- 
> Col. G. L. Sicherman
> ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel

------------
As a Bill, I feel somewhat qualified to venture a hypothesis (or even aN
hypothesis):  `w' is pronounced /v/ in many languages, and `v' and `b'
are not distinguished in many languages. So:

	 William -> Will -> /vil/ -> /bil/ -> Bill

Does this sound plausible or is it mere folk etymology?

-- 
				William J. Rapaport
				Assistant Professor

Dept. of Computer Science, SUNY Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260
(716) 636-3193
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