18th and 19th Century American Nicknames
I found an interesting link on the Roots Web email this week. They linked to a page of the Connecticut State Library website. The page is titled, A Listing of Some 18th and 19th Century American Nicknames.
I thought this might be helpful to some others as well when searching census records. Some of the nicknames are obvious, like Abe for Abraham or Zack for Zachariah. But other ones are surprising, like Fanny for Nathaniel (isn't Fanny a girl's name) or Kersty for Christina. It's fun just to peruse the old names that aren't used anymore; like Relief, Mehitable, Experience, Theophilus, Virgil, and Obediah.