4.3 Revival. Revival seems to involve two stages of more elementary processes.

First, as the language of a particular culture changes through time a name may be lost or fall into disuse. Second, at a later date the population will begin to use the name again in a similar form. Its current revival is often mediated by its use in literature or by an increased knowlege of historical biography. Unlike the other processes of borrowing, the two cultures involved are distant from each other along the dimension of time. Unlike evolution, there was a hiatus in time when the name was not used in the culture.

Figure 37 lists a few examples of more than a score of given names that have been revived in English in modern times. It should be clear that the innovators had transliteration and phonological issues to overcome in adapting these forms to Modern English. It is likely that the letters were first transliterated according to their nearest sound values, and then the resulting spelling was adjusted to make it accord with the pronunciation rules of Modern English.