A relative whose name was Beverley always went by “Bev.” That’s the name she signed on various cards and letters sent to my parents over the years. One item had slipped in with letters from another side of the family and, without context and while thinking too fast, I found myself asking “Who is Ben? Or who is Benjamin?” It was a little while before I realized there was no Ben at all. The “v” at the end of Bev looked like an “n.”
Sometimes one little letter is all it takes.
And it can be worse with names that are short because there’s less context with which to work.
One response
Beverly is a very old name from before it was used as a woman’s name – men were named Beverly.