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ArchivesRe: Really confused about Scottish name
in reply to a message by Manray
Firstly Lilias is a Scots, not a Gaelic name so none of the spellings are more 'Gaelic' than the other. As an old name it arose at a time when spellings were fluid and I have an ancestor who goes through pretty much all of the variants during her lifetime. I wouldn't therefore say any of those spellings are more legitimate than the others, although in my experience the commonest form is Lilias. I definitely haven't seen Lileas as much. As to pronunciation I have only ever heard LIH-lee-us, and my ancestor also appears as Lily which would back this up.
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That clarifies a few things I suppose. Still, it would be nice to know which form was more commonly used in 19th century Scotland, fluid spellings or not. The LYE-lee-us pronunciation threw me. It did not seem right. I also saw LEE-lus down for Lileas. Both were on Baby Names World which is supposed to have redone their database and use 'Name Experts'. I think I will stick with this site.
Thanks.
Thanks.
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Out of interest I did a search on the IGI on familysearch.com. This searches old birth and marriage records generally from the 1700s-1800s in the UK. Using the common surname Smith, I get 231 Lillias, 184 Lilias and 2 Lileas. Using another common surname Campbell, I get 228 Lillias, 121 Lilias and 0 Lileas. So I stand corrected, Lillias with 2 l's is the most common.
There is also 1 Lyleas Campbell, which might reflect a different pronunciation but this record is from 1654 when spelling was even less consistent so I don't think you can draw anything from it.
There is also 1 Lyleas Campbell, which might reflect a different pronunciation but this record is from 1654 when spelling was even less consistent so I don't think you can draw anything from it.
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Okay, that is interesting. Thank you for the help.
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