11 baby names that have very unexpected diminutives
Names are often extended, shortened or ‘riffed-off’ in the name of displaying intimacy and these tweaked names are known as diminutives (or ‘pet names’).
Some seemingly common baby names end up with very surprising diminutives which are arrived at by a few natty linguistic shifts. Let us take you through a few …
5
Bessie is a pet name for Elizabeth
Elizabeth has a bunch of diminutives containing similar sound patterns and letters. Among them we have Bess, Bessie, Betsy, Betty and Libby.
You can see how most of those diminutives are related to the original Elizabeth in one way or another.