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From: colonel@gloria.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: 'B' is for William
Message-ID: <745@gloria.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 16-May-85 11:28:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: gloria.745
Posted: Thu May 16 11:28:29 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 20-May-85 04:06:23 EDT
References: <419@cvl.UUCP> <733@gloria.UUCP> <419@ellie.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: The Jack of Clubs Precision Instruments Co.
Lines: 17

> 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

Plausible.  I even knew a Czech named "Vilem." It doesn't explain
Robert->Bob, though.

And what about Edward->Ned, Molly->Polly, Meggy->Peggy ... ?
-- 
Col. G. L. Sicherman
...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel