Hello Michael and List, Thanks for that information about the name being a surname diminutive rather than that of a Christian name. Yes, like you, I've come across "Lanty" but nowhere any indication proof positive that it derives from this or from that. The closest I came was in connecting it to a "Cornelius" Delaney. It could well be, for we have "Betty" and "Dick" as examples of other pet names that, to a non-English speaking person, would never suggest "Elizabeth" or "Richard". Another suggestion was that it is from the English "Lawrence" or our Irish equivalent "Lorcan". I'm still open to further possibilities - or better still, certainties - from other Listers. Meanwhile, I have to refer you all to a book I found on the internet. "A Humorous Tale" published in Philadelphia in 1850 by one Gregory Seaworthy, pseudonym of George Throop 1818-1896 has a "Lanty" Oliphant as a character. Though, speed reading through this tale, I failed to spot the man in question. Slainte, Julie