Dear John & Martin, Thanks for the explanation, John. I did not know Laetitia meant happiness.....as to pet names, some of my mother's brothers called her Tish. Bettye K. ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Ball" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 7:58 AM Subject: [WLS-PEM] Forename 'Lettice' > Martin Owen <[email protected]> wrote: > Because I have a Lettice in my family tree, I thought I'd look to see if I > could find any reference to the name, its origins or derivations anywhere. > ================= > > Dear Martin, > > The Oxford Names Companion has the following entry for the forename Lettice: > ---------------- > LETTICE (f.) English: from the medieval English form of the Latin name > Laetitia 'happiness'. It was popular among the Victorians, but is now > regarded as faintly risible (perhaps because of its similarity to the > vocabulary word lettuce). > Pet forms: Letty, Lettie > ---------------- > > Source: Page 808 "The Oxford Names Companion" by Patrick Hanks, Flavia > Hodges, A. D. Mills, and Adrian Room, published 2002 by Oxford University > Press. ISBN 0-19-860561-7 > > Kind regards, > > John > ---------------------------- >