I was wondering about something the other day, and immediately thought of you, and resolved to ask you if you knew the answer -
Is there a linguistic term for nouns/proper nouns that are spelled differently, but "mean" the same thing?
i.e. is there a term to describe the fact that Erin, Aaron and Aron are all valid variants on the same "sounding" name?
I've been thinking about it for a while, and I think that the name "Leanne" has the most correct spellings that I have come up with - and I was wondering if that were true, and how I would look it up, and figured it might help if there were a particular term for "variants in spelling, but all sounding the same"
Words that sound the same but are spelled differently are homophones. There and their, for example.
What you're talking about are just alternate spellings for names. That's usually etymological. Aaron is Hebrew, I think? Aron may be also (too tired to look up right now). Erin is Irish Gaelic, and probably completely unrelated.
The face that Leanne has so many spellings probably has a lot to do with creative parents trying to name their kids something "different."
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Is there a linguistic term for nouns/proper nouns that are spelled differently, but "mean" the same thing?
i.e. is there a term to describe the fact that Erin, Aaron and Aron are all valid variants on the same "sounding" name?
I've been thinking about it for a while, and I think that the name "Leanne" has the most correct spellings that I have come up with - and I was wondering if that were true, and how I would look it up, and figured it might help if there were a particular term for "variants in spelling, but all sounding the same"
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What you're talking about are just alternate spellings for names. That's usually etymological. Aaron is Hebrew, I think? Aron may be also (too tired to look up right now). Erin is Irish Gaelic, and probably completely unrelated.
The face that Leanne has so many spellings probably has a lot to do with creative parents trying to name their kids something "different."
Reply
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