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Have we been spelling Raleigh wrong this whole time?
You may have learned that the city was named after Sir Walter Raleigh, but it turns out the original spelling of his name may differ than what we knew, WRAL reports. According to the National Parks Service, he signed his name several different ways throughout the course of his life during the 16th century, from Rauley to Rawlygh and even Raughleigh. The way we spell it may not even be one of the ways he referred to himself at all.
William Stebbing, a Victorian biographer of Raleigh and one of Sir Walter's most prolific historians, spent a lot of time researching the Sir during the 1800s, including the various spellings of his name.
"There was no standard of orthography for surnames till the latter part of the seventeenth century," he said. Orthography is the conventional spelling system of a language, so prior to the 1800s, phonetic spelling was used for many names.
According to the news outlet, the various spellings could be due to a number of factors, including phonetic spelling, lack of education, and easily misread cursive handwriting.
While Sir Walter went by many names, the spelling he used exclusively from 1584 until his death was "Ralegh," which likely lead to the conventional spelling we know today.