William shortened to Bill?

Question

Does anyone know why? Will or Willie but why Bill? There`s Jan for Janet, Bernie for Bernadette, Sue for Susan etc

Answer 1

Bill as a short form of William was not used until the 17th. century.

Answer 2

Nicknames like Bill, d**k, and Bob have passed through two stages:

1)  During the Middle Ages, family and friends shortened William, Richard, and Robert to Will, Rich, and Rob.

2)  Then, in some instances, they rhymed the nickname with the original nickname: Bill rhymes with Will; d**k rhymes with Rick; Bob rhymes with Rob.  

Some girls' given names follow a similar process, for instance, the nickname for Margaret, Meg, rhymes with Peg. Sometimes a diminutive is added Billy, Ricky, Dicky, Bobby, Peggy.  Doll, Poll, and Moll, nicknames for Mary, often add the diminutive: Dolly, Polly, and Molly.

Answer 3

Names starting with W is difficult to pronounce and if we change it to be B it is easy. So there is a tendency among people to replace W with B as phonetically it is easy . Like wise William became Billiam and as time passed it became BILL.

Answer 4

its to do with the old english (angalo saxon) spelling of william.

Answer 5

There's also Gill (hard G sound) For Guillaume the French form of William and for Guillome the Spanish form of William.

Answer 6

its the same as

dickie is short for richard

ted is short for theodore,

um havent got the foggiest clue why though!

Answer 7

I think it is Germanic.

For example, they cannot naturally pronounce "will". but say "Vill"

So Bill may be another lack of pronunciation, and a lot of Germans are called Villiam, or Billiam.

Answer 8

Evelyn S is the closest you'll get to an accurate answer, and reflects how names & nicknames worked with my English side back to 1600. I'd give her the 10 pts.

Answer 9

Because Will's a banker