I have seen it stated, though I cannot at present recall the authority, that in one of our ancient families Alice is a name given to the sons and not to the daughters. This would at any rate be etymologically correct, for Alice is properly a man's name, and not a woman's. It is, there seems little doubt, derived from the Anglo-Saxon Adelgis, of which the female form was Adelgisa. It is clear that Alice (Aliss) represents Adelgis, and not Adelgisa, and that the proper female form would be Alisa, or, for euphony, Aliza. I venture to suggest that our Eliza, generally and very naturally assumed to be an abbreviation of Elizabeth, is in fact this missing name. Now, for the proofs of Aliza as the representative of Adelgisa, we must refer to the _Liber Vitæ_ of Durham, in which we can trace the changes that have taken place in Adelgisa since the first noble lady of that name laid her gift upon the altar. First we find it contracted into Adeliza, and then, from about the twelfth century into Aaliza and Aliza, the latter name being henceforward rather a common one. The former of these two contracted forms, Adeliza, though not a name in common use, is one still given to the daughters of certain of our noble families; the latter form, Aliza, I take to be the origin of our Eliza. (The initial vowel is of no account, the ancient name beginning indifferently with _a_ or _e_, and Alice in some families appearing as Ellice). But concurrently with the above forms in the _Liber Vitæ_, we have also Adaliz, Adliz, and Alis, at an early date, some of them at least being certainly names of women, so that the misappropriation is at any rate an ancient one. Towards the close of the record, and about the end of the fourteenth century, another form, Alicia, begins to make its appearance in the _Liber Vitæ_, and appears to have become at once a very favourite name. Then, as now, fashion seems to have ruled, and when a new name came in, there seems to have been a run upon it. But by this time Elizabeth had come into use, and as soon as ever that took place, the two names, Eliza and Elizabeth, would begin to get mixed up together as they are now, so that a new female form would, so to speak, be required for Alice. Alicia (or more properly Alisia), is an attempt to supply the euphony which is lacking in Alisa, by supplementing it with a vowel, just as, for the same reason, Amala has been made into Amelia. About the beginning of the fifteenth century another Christian name for women, Alison, begins to make its appearance in the _Liber Vitæ_. This name, however, I take to be from an entirely different origin. There is an old Frankish woman's name, Alesinda, Elesind, Alesint, of the eighth century, from which, dropping the final _d_, it would naturally come, and which is derived by Grimm from Gothic _alja_, alius (in the probable sense of stranger or foreigner), and _sind_ in the sense of companion or attendant. JANET: _Not from_ JANE _or any female form of_ JOHN.