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In times past, people only had one name. The last name came from the person's occupation. So "John the Baker" became "John Baker". However, when a person from another county said "Baker", the person's accent might make it sound like Bicker, Becker, Bekar, Backer", etc. As well, many people did not know so-called 'correct' spelling on any word or name. So variants developed from how people spoke the name and how it was written down in legal documents. Though genealogists sometimes complain an ancestor used or someone at some point wrote down the "wrong name", we really do not know how a name was supposed to be spelled originally.

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10y ago

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