page_title: Spelling of Shakespeare's name
section_title: Other spellings
hierarchical_section_title: Spelling of Shakespeare's name / Other spellings
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a simple straight-on image of the commemorative plaque on Shakespeare's funerary monument, which is in public domain since it is a work created before 1623.
context_page_description: The spelling of William Shakespeare's name has varied over time. It was not consistently spelled any single way during his lifetime, in manuscript or in printed form. After his death the name was spelled variously by editors of his work, and the spelling was not fixed until well into the 20th century.
  The standard spelling of the surname as "Shakespeare" was the most common published form in Shakespeare's lifetime, but it was not one used in his own handwritten signatures. It was, however, the spelling used as a printed signature to the dedications of the first editions of his poems Venus and Adonis in 1593 and The Rape of Lucrece in 1594. It is also the spelling used in the First Folio, the definitive collection of his plays published in 1623, after his death.
  The spelling of the name was later modernised, "Shakespear" gaining popular usage in the 18th century, which was largely replaced by "Shakspeare" from the late 18th through the early 19th century. In the Romantic and Victorian eras the spelling "Shakspere", as used in the poet's own signature, became more widely adopted in the belief that this was the most authentic version.
context_section_description: The writer David Kathman has tabulated the variations in the spelling of Shakespeare's name as reproduced in Samuel Schoenbaum's William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life. He states that of "non-literary references" in Shakespeare's lifetime (1564–1616) the spelling "Shakespeare" appears 71 times, while "Shakespere" appears second with 27 usages. These are followed by "Shakespear" (16); "Shakspeare" (13); "Shackspeare" (12) and "Shakspere" (8). There are also many other variations that appear in small numbers or as one-offs. Critics of Kathman's approach have pointed out that it is skewed by repetitions of a spelling in the same document, gives each occurrence the same statistical weight irrespective of context, and does not adequately take historical and chronological factors into account.
  R.C. Churchill notes that name variations were far from unusual in the Elizabethan era:
  The name of Sir Walter Raleigh was written by his contemporaries either Raleigh, Raliegh, Ralegh, Raghley, Rawley, Rawly, Rawlie, Rawleigh, Raulighe, Raughlie, or Rayly. The name of Thomas Dekker was written either Dekker, Decker, Deckar, Deckers, Dicker, Dickers, Dyckers, or (interestingly enough) Dickens.
  Kathman notes that the spelling is typically more uniform in printed versions than in manuscript versions, and that there is a greater variety of spelling in provincial documents than in metropolitan ones.
caption: The memorial plaque on Shakespeare's tomb in the Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon. His name is spelled "Shakspeare". Next to it, the inscription on the grave of his widow Anne Hathaway calls her the "wife of William Shakespeare".
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