# ffinch-ffarowmere? WTff? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 18, 2007, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ffinch-ffarowmere-wtff/404629 "2007-05-18T18:26:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ffinch-ffarowmere-wtff/404629/1 "2007-05-18T18:26:24Z")
Why in the name of Og’s hairy loincloth are some English surnames conventionally spelled with initial doubled **lowercase** “ff” instead of the more usual capital “F”? Typical example in a [short story by P. G. Wodehouse](http://www.sfsite.com/01a/sorc48.htm): > [@](#): > > In “A Slice of Life” by P.G. Wodehouse, a brilliant, if mousy, patent medicine inventor, Wilfred Mulliner must circumvent the nasty Sir Jasper ffinch-ffarowmere to reach his love Angela, where other problems await him. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ffinch-ffarowmere-wtff/404629/2 "2007-05-18T18:38:47Z")
ffor ffucks sake, I have no ffucking idea. fflipping 'eck Sir ppercy ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ffinch-ffarowmere-wtff/404629/3 "2007-05-18T18:43:36Z")
I asked about this quite a while back, in relation to the Roger Moore movie **ffolkes**. IIRC, the response I got was that it was some Welsh thing, with the “ff” representing some letter or sound the rest of us don’t have. It must have confused a lot of people, becvause I notice now that the movie is marketed as **North Sea Hijack** : > **[North Sea Hijack (1980) ⭐ 6.3 | Action, Adventure, Thriller](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081809/)** > > 1h 35m | PG ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ffinch-ffarowmere-wtff/404629/4 "2007-05-18T19:21:48Z")
I looked it up a few years ago, and the claim was that once upon a time, you could write two small f’s to be a capital F: you could write Forde as fforde. It has since become something almost exclusively used by the upper classes, and is often seen as a snobbish affectation. So you see people named ffinch-ffarrowmere and so on; I don’t know why it’s usually hyphenated with some other name as well, but it sure seems to happen a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ffinch-ffarowmere-wtff/404629/5 "2007-05-18T19:24:38Z")
Welsh does have a double-f to represent the hard f sound. Welsh single-f sounds like English v. But I think **dangermom** is right, and the double consonants at the start of some surnames date back to the time when some letters were written as double letters rather than capitals at the start of names. There’s an example in the second image on [this](http://www.british-genealogy.com/resources/registers/2baptpre1813.htm) page. ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ffinch-ffarowmere-wtff/404629/6 "2007-05-18T19:28:32Z")
You know it’s really hard to google “ff”? But I got this tidbit off of a forum somewhere, so take it for what it’s worth: The ‘old’ way of printing/writing included the rule that where an ‘s’ precedes a vowel, it is made to look like the ‘f’ of today - The letter ‘f’ was represented by ff (hence the old English surnames Ford and Forde, sometimes spelled Fford and Fforde (although strictly speaking, the capital shouldn’t be there… the names should be in the lower case fford and fforde). ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ffinch-ffarowmere-wtff/404629/7 "2007-05-18T20:42:23Z")
Huh. Yeah, the archaic “double-lowercase letter at the start of a proper name” convention, surviving in the surname spelling used by ancient and/or snobby families, does make sense as an explanation. And maybe the Welsh use of “ff” as a special consonant has something to do with why this convention survived particularly for names starting with “F”? I’ve never seen the “initial-double-lowercase” with any other letter, as in (hypothetical) “bbrett-bbrazelton” or “pplantaganet-ppym”, for example. Thanks, ffolks! ---
**Author:** ![Ponster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponster/32/17081_2.png) [@Ponster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponster)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2007, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ffinch-ffarowmere-wtff/404629/8 "2007-05-19T14:23:03Z")
[QUOTE=Usram] Welsh does have a double-f to represent the hard f sound. Welsh single-f sounds like English v. (snip …) [/QUOTE] The Welsh “ff” is pronounced as the double “f” in the English “off”. The Welsh “f” is pronounced as the single “f” in the English “of”. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2007, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ffinch-ffarowmere-wtff/404629/9 "2007-05-19T15:00:19Z")
Just to insert a semi-appropriate tidbit: the double-l in Welsh is the voiceless lateral. Make an l-sound. Now make it again without using your vocal cords. Llewellyn. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2007, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ffinch-ffarowmere-wtff/404629/10 "2007-05-19T15:18:04Z")
The double-lowercase [ff] at the start of certain names has nothing to do with the Welsh letter Ff. For one thing, the Welsh capitalize the first [f] when it occurs in names, e.g. _Ffagan_. As stated above, the double-lowercase represents an older way of writing a single capital F. From Wikipedia, “Capitalization”: “A few English names may be written with two lowercase f’s: ffrench, ffoulkes, etc. This ff fossilizes an older misreading of a [blackletter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackletter) uppercase F.” ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2007, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ffinch-ffarowmere-wtff/404629/11 "2007-05-19T17:30:22Z")
> [@](#): > > Just to insert a semi-appropriate tidbit: the double-l in Welsh is the voiceless lateral. Make an l-sound. Now make it again without using your vocal cords. Llewellyn. I tried this and I end up with something that sounds like hhlewellyn. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2007, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ffinch-ffarowmere-wtff/404629/12 "2007-05-19T17:49:08Z")
[QUOTE=Christopher] I tried this and I end up with something that sounds like hhlewellyn. [/QUOTE] That’s about right. But of course it should be more like “hhlewelhhun”. Less of the H though, it’s more of a hiss. Now try Llanelli. Or Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2007, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ffinch-ffarowmere-wtff/404629/13 "2007-05-19T18:29:42Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. [/QUOTE] When I tried to pronounce this, I swallowed my tongue. Did I do it right? ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2007, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ffinch-ffarowmere-wtff/404629/14 "2007-05-19T18:51:51Z")
If you’re still alive to tell the tale, you probably did it wrong. Even Welsh speakers abbreviate that one (it’s the artificially extended version of the name of a village on the Welsh island of Anglesey). ---
**Author:** ![Ponster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponster/32/17081_2.png) [@Ponster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponster)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ffinch-ffarowmere-wtff/404629/15 "2007-05-20T09:08:53Z")
You know it’s not all that unusual for a language to have sounds which are difficult to pronounce for non native speakers - we don’t even need to go as far as the “clicks” in Xhosa, our English “th” is a great example (even or some native Anglophones!) especially when placed at the end of a word “fifth” “eighth” etc. There are other “extra” letters in Welsh (ch dd ff ng …) but “ll” gets a lot of attention because it’s so prevalent in place names - it usually denotes a church - Church of Elli, Church of Mair(Mary) etc. Is it that poor little Welsh isn’t in the Romance club, nor even the Germanic one and so an easy target for mockery ? Would there be a similar tone in a discussion of Thai ? There’s been a theory about for a while that the Welsh are the only people it’s still ok to make derogatory remarks about … gingerly steps off soapbox ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ffinch-ffarowmere-wtff/404629/16 "2007-05-20T20:59:59Z")
[QUOTE=dangermom] You know it’s really hard to google “ff”? But I got this tidbit off of a forum somewhere, so take it for what it’s worth: The ‘old’ way of printing/writing included the rule that where an ‘s’ precedes a vowel, it is made to look like the ‘f’ of today - The letter ‘f’ was represented by ff (hence the old English surnames Ford and Forde, sometimes spelled Fford and Fforde (although strictly speaking, the capital shouldn’t be there… the names should be in the lower case fford and fforde). [/QUOTE] Not quite. You can tell that sort of s from a lower-case f as the bar extends only to the left of the vertical stroke.