In this Captain's Quarters post about explosives in Iraq, Captain Ed Morrissey quotes a New York Sun article that uses an abbreviated form of Thomas Lipscomb's first name.
One of our favorite movies is the film Alfred Hitchcock made in 1940 called "Foreign Correspondent." It's about how civilization's enemy in what became World War II sought to manipulate a peace movement dubbed "well-meaning amateurs" and through them, the press. We wouldn't want to draw exact parallels to the Vietnam era - or our own wartime drama today - but we couldn't help think of it as we read Thos. Lipscomb's dispatch, issued on our Page 1 yesterday, on how the communists in Hanoi were viewing the activities of John Kerry's Vietnam Veterans Against the War.Decidedly odd for a modern writer, no? Anyway, for those who are interested, here's a list of first name abbreviations. If yours isn't there, make one up and leave it in a comment. A thousand years from now, this post will likely serve as an authoritative historical record on names in the early 21st century -- so make your mark.
I've seen abbreviations like this in my genealogical research. They were quite common in a day when ink and paper were so expensive that the savings afforded by not writing out names was significant. It's only advances in technology that have made abbreviations of names unnecessary.
Modern naming practices have also made abbreviations problematic. When there are only a few different names, abbreviations make sense; but when names are routinely spelled with deliberate variations, abbreviations omit important information. You would have to have different abbreviations for "Jaydon," "Jaden," "Jeidin", and "Jaidun," not to mention having to come up with abbreviations for every new and funky combination parents concoct. (I know a family whose sons are named Corbin and Taybor.)