Creative spellings (attn. Cleveland?)
When was it that creative spellings first started popping up? I mean this besides an occasional misspelling, but deliberately trying to alter a spelling with (roughly) the same sound as a traditoinal name. So names like James turning into Jaymz and Cameron turning into Kamryn.

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This is really difficult to know because one cannot tell from looking at a spelling whether or not the parents deliberately were using an unusual spelling, or whether they simply heard a name that they liked without having seen it written down and came up with a spelling they thought was appropriate to the sound they heard, and it turned out to be different from the traditional one. However, I am sure that deliberate respelling is a phenomenon that is way more than 30 years old. The spelling Kathryn for Catherine/Katherine is a deliberate respelling that goes back to the 1890s. There are 177 women named "Debra" in the index to the 1850 U.S. Census.
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Thanks!I thought it was a more recent trend, but it turns out I've never really thought about Katryn as a creative spelling for example, because I've seen many times before. Has there been a very strong increase in 'misspellings' in the last decade? Or might it just be that my perception of this is a little off, since it's only the last few years that we've all been discussing names on the internet?
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There has been an increase in just about EVERY way to create a "different" name. There are more surname transfers, more place name transfers, more turning modern words into names, more names invented out of whole cloth, AND more deliberate respellings than there used to be.
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Until very recently there was no standart English spelling, so when you look at medieval records common names had many different spellings and vernacular forms: like Richarde, Richard, Rycharde, for instance. Many of these 'mispellings' were preserved in surnames.
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Thanks, it's the same in Dutch really when you look at medieval texts. After a while though, the spellings became more unified. I'm really looking for the trend where people on purposely misspell a name (what we call 'kreativ' here). Not accidental misspellings or spelling variants from before the rules were set. I'm trying to find out roughly how old the first 'kreativ' spelling kids are now. Would some of them be thirty already? Or are the oldest kids around ten now? So that why I'm looking for the moment these names first started popping up.
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I know of a Danyel who is about 30 and teenage brothers named Austyn and Brandyn. The trend has been around for a while.ETA:Jaimz Woolvett (Canadian actor) is 46 years old.

This message was edited 9/18/2013, 11:41 PM

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Thank you. I'd never have guessed a Jaimz to be over 40 years old. This was helpful to know :)
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