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Initial Jewellery & Personal Meaning


anne boleyn letter b necklaceInitial jewellery has been admired for generations. You may recognise the famous B pendant worn by Anne Boleyn? Her necklace may be a little fancier than many of today's initial or letter necklaces, but initials are still popularly used to personalise traditional and contemporary jewellery. 

Today, people wear their own initials as well as letters to represent loved ones. Initial jewellery differs to name jewellery as the first letter of each name is engraved or created, rather than the whole name.initial locket engraved

Signet rings are an ever-popular way to display initials. Pendants, lockets, charm bracelets and earrings are also adorned with initials of all shapes and sizes. Your Giddy Aunts have been creating and providing beautiful initials for many years and have collected some "Initial Intel" we hope you will find interesting too! 

What is an Initial?

  • An "initial" is the letter a name begins with.  The word "initial" comes from the Latin "initialis", which means "standing at the beginning".
  • The Ancient Romans only had 23 letters. The extra three - "J" "V" & "W" - were added in the Middle Ages.
  • The letter used most often in the English alphabet is "E" however more words begin with "S" than any other letter. 
  • Samuel Morse (the inventor of Morse Code) arranged letters in the following order of frequency E, T, A, I, N, O, S, H, R, D, L, U, C, M, F, W, Y, G, P, B, V, K, Q, J, X and last (and least used of all) Z.  Sam may have been interested in Giddy's observation that H is the only letter that retains the same position (#8) in the order of frequency and in the alphabet. (Fact check!)
  • While there are 26 letters in the alphabet they represent more than 40 sounds because most letters stand for more than one sound. Think of the sounds made by "c" in Pacific Ocean!
  • Traditionally Australian, English and Canadian people pronounce Z as "zed" from the Old French ("zede").  Americans say "zee," as a result of a 17th century English dialect quoted in the American Dictionary of the English Language (1828).  Many Australian children also say "Zee" as a result of the Sesame Street alphabet song.
  • Many languages have a word for mother that begins with an "M" sound - Hebrew says "ema," Finnish "emo," Basque "ama," Mandarin Chinese "ma" and so on... perhaps because "mamamamama" is one of the earliest bubba sounds?
  • The M and the M as in M&Ms (chocolate) are actually the initials of the inventors; Mars and Murrie.
  • You can find a boy's name hidden in the initial letters of the months of the year: J F M A M J JASON D!!
  • There is a theory that we are more likely to choose things or be drawn towards things that have the same initial as our own name. 

letter initial charms
And last but not least, Giddy Aunt's favourite, seasonal "letter" riddle:

Q. How many letters are there in the alphabet?

A. 25 - because the Angel said "Noel" 

If you didn't initially laugh at that one, give it a little time, and you will remember it always!  



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