Mr Vot or Mr Vott? : Implicit knowledge of surname spelling

When surnames sound the same as real words, such as “Kidd”, they are often spelled with superfluous letters, which is referred to as “padding”. The current study aimed to test if adult spellers have implicit knowledge of this word class pattern. We examined two opposing principles: the distinctiveness principle and the familiarity principle. The distinctiveness principle would predict that people would use padding more often for surnames that were real words, to increase their distinctiveness, compared to nonwords. The familiarity principle comes from evidence that people prefer familiar spellings for familiar words, and would predict that participants would use padding less often for surnames that were real words than nonwords. Undergraduates (n = 66, M age = 27.7 years, 52 female) completed a spelling choice task for made-up surnames; half sounded the same as real words and half were nonwords. Participants chose padded spellings significantly more often for nonword (e.g., “Lodd”) than real word surnames (e.g., “Nod"), which supports the familiarity principle. Spelling distinctions between surname types did not correlate significantly with general spelling skill. Results are interpreted in terms of the cues supporting each spelling, as explained in the Integration of Multiple Patterns theory (Treiman & Kessler, 2014).