Nicknames beginning with B

72 nicknames and formal names starting with B. Search below, or open any name to see what it stood for in the records and when.

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What is each B nickname short for?

Old nicknames for formal names starting with B

Is it a nickname at all? Straight verdicts for B

Looking for something else? Back to the nickname finder, or read our guide to why an ancestor’s name keeps changing spelling.

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.

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