Deviants Variant or Deviant? The Guild of One-Name Studies defines a variant as: “a name spelling which varies from the primary name spelling (or another variant spelling) used by that person’s ancestors and which is: A name spelling that the person was known to have used, through signature evidence on wills, marriage bonds, marriage certificates or other documents originating from the individual concerned, or a name used by officials on a consistent and persistent basis over a number of years.” The Guild of One-Name Studies defines a deviant as: “any other spelling recorded, including cases where the spelling occurs in official records, but only randomly and inconsistently. Deviants will also include spellings derived from enumeration, transcription and indexing errors, both contemporary and modern.” Do names that are subject to drastic variance share some or all of the following aspects? Local, distinctive (possibly locative = placename surnames) Ramify suddenly Migrate over dialect boundaries Polysyllabic = each syllable being meaningless There is much work to be done in: Measuring the distance from origin of new surname mutations Plumbing the linguistic possibilities of parish registers with regard to the duration of each incumbency