What's in a Name?

Elisabeth, Isabel, Izabel, Ebbie, Irene Isabella, Isabelle, Lyzbeth, Lisbeth, Eliza, Lisa, Lissa, Liza, Liz, Lizzie, Els, Elsa, Elza, Elisa, Belle, Bella, Betta, Beth, Betty, Bettie, Beetle, Bethany, Bess, Besse, Betsy, Buffy, Lily, Lilibeth, Bessie, Elisla, Liesl, Libby, Libbi, Lilla, Elspeth, Billie, Tizzy, Zabby, ... This is just a subset of the name variations for Elizabeth.  Perhaps because it is derived from Ancient Greek that it has so many variations in all major countries and languages. Its meaning in Hebrew  is "My God is an oath" or "My God is abundance".  The wikipedia section on statistics and name variants in use across the world tells us it has been among the 25 most popular names for the past 100 years. The name variant entries in Wikipedia are organized by full name, clipped forms, first half, middle, and second half.  And there is a separate section on nicknames. I wondered about the names with the most variants.  However, the search results were ask/answer websites. Many are targeted to naming babies with spelling variations to achieve a differentiated name.  I did find out that Shakespeare's name varied and there are six surviving signatures written by Shakespeare himself.  Most are abbreviated versions and it was a common practice then to use 'breviographic' conventions, or scribble abbreviations. Other examples given:  the name of Sir Walter Raleigh was written by his contemporaries either Raleigh, Raliegh, Ralegh, Raghley, Rawley, Rawly, Rawlie, Rawleigh, Raulighe, Raughlie, or Rayly. The name of Thomas Dekker was written either Dekker, Decker, Deckar, Deckers, Dicker, Dickers, Dyckers, or (interestingly enough) Dickens. So we dip into Spring today with our image of tree blossoms and the colour palette of spring on a heart of gold.