While I have the same pronunciation preference as Venita, the problem that can raise for family history researchers is that in England (and other countries) "Christian" is a male forename, and if you check off Female on some forms while searching for a Scottish ancestress by that name, you get back "0 results". But then try for a census record using the name of someone else in her family, and there little "Kursteen" (as one record had it) is, as a daughter of the family. My paternal Aberdonian grandparents and relatives all pronounced the personal name "Christian" as something close to the Scandinavian "Kirsten", hence the abbreviated common pet-name Kirstie. However, they pronounced the adjective referring to the religion as "Kristin" (and my maternal Borders relatives pronounced the personal name also as "Kristin"). I remember as a small child finding this fascinating, which probably helped to nudge me eventually towards my academic career in historical and comparative onomastics -- I even managed to work my gt-gt-grandmother Christian-et-al into the oral defence of my PhD thesis on Scottish names. (Probably startled the lady into a quick spin in her grave: "What? Did the lassie just take my name in vain? What on earth is the bairn talking about?" :-) ) Margaret Gibbs On 03/10/2013 10:44 AM, Venita wrote: > My grandfather, who was half Scottish and half English, had a sister named Christian. My grandmother always pronounced her name Christie-ann, but many in the family called her "Christy" and spelled her name Christine or Christina. I vote for the original spelling and pronunciation! > > Venita > > > >> On 2 October 2013 16:54, Margaret Gibbs <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> >>> And there are other nicknames for Christian, which is what appears on my >>> gt-gt-grandmother's christening record. I was just listing the variants I'd >>> found for her in her christening, marriage, census, and death records. Her >>> husband registered her death as "Christina", although my grandfather said >>> he never heard him call his wife anything but "Kirsty" -- or "my love" -- >>> and on her marriage certificate she signed her name quite clearly as >>> "Christianna". The family joke was that she decided to "frilly up" her name >>> to match her wedding gown :-) . >>> >>> Margaret Gibbs >>> >>> ------------------------------- >>> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >