abbreviation

a non-systematic traditional variant of a name; the a. is usually a deviant form, but in certain cases it may be fully standard; an a. usually involves the ommision of 1) final characters, e.gg. “Jo.” for “John”, and “Benj.” for “Benjamin,” 2) middle characters, e.gg. “Wm.” for “William” and “Jas.” for “James”, “Thos.” for “Thomas” or 3) a change of characters, e.g. “Xtian” for “Christian,” and usually ends in a period; an extreme form of a. are the initials of the name; cf. Chapter 3, §1, ¶1; an a. of a person’ academic degrees occurs in the postnominal initials, where each shortened form is also marked with a period