Nickname & Formal Name Finder
Look up what an old nickname is short for, or every historical nickname for a formal name — Polly to Mary and back again. Free, and your search never leaves your browser.
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Before spelling was standardized, record-keepers wrote down the name a family actually used — the pet form, not the baptismal name. That is why a woman baptized Mary appears on a census as Polly, an Ann shows up as Nancy, and a Scottish Janet is written Jessie. Miss the variant and the trail goes cold. This free tool searches a curated dataset of historical nicknames both directions, entirely in your browser.
How do I find out what a nickname is short for?
Type the nickname as it appears in the record — Peggy, Sukey, Nabby — and the finder shows the formal name (or names) it most likely stands for, ranked, with the eras and regions where the mapping is attested. Many are counterintuitive: Peggy for Margaret, Sukey for Susan, Nabby for Abigail.
Popular nickname questions
What is each nickname short for? Browse A–Z
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Is it short for anything? Straight verdicts, A–Z
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Old nicknames by formal name, A–Z
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FAQs
How does the nickname finder work?+
Type a nickname to see the formal names it stood for in historical records, or type a formal name to see its short forms. It searches a curated dataset of US, British and Irish record nicknames both directions — Polly→Mary and Mary→Polly.
Why do old records use such different nicknames?+
Before standardized spelling, clerks wrote the pet name a family used — often unrecognizable today (Polly for Mary, Nancy for Ann, Sukey for Susan). Missing these variants is one of the most common reasons a genealogy search stalls.
Is my search private?+
Yes. The lookup runs entirely in your browser against a dataset shipped with the page — nothing you type is uploaded or stored on our servers.
Start with one relative and see what comes back.
Add what you remember and AncestorIQ searches for the rest. Free to build your tree for as long as you like.
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