nced as a monosyllable, but it is scarcely conclusive as to anything
else, and Lord Braybrooke does not say what he supposes the sound of the
vowels to have been. At present there are three pronunciations in
use--Peps, which is the most usual; Peeps, which is the received one at
Magdalene College, and Peppis, which I learn from Mr. Walter C. Pepys is
the one used by other branches of the family. Mr. Pepys has paid
particular attention to this point, and in his valuable "Genealogy of the
Pepys Family" (1887) he has collected seventeen varieties of spelling of
the name, which are as follows, the dates of the documents in which the
form appears being attached:

1. Pepis (1273); 2. Pepy (1439); 3. Pypys (1511); 4. Pipes (1511);
5. Peppis (1518); 6. Peppes (1519); 7. Pepes (1520); 8. Peppys (1552);
9. Peaps (1636); 10. Pippis (1639); 11. Peapys (1653); 12. Peps (1655);
13. Pypes (1656); 14. Peypes (1656); 15. Peeps (1679); 16. Peepes (1683);
17. Peyps (1703). Mr. Walter Pepys adds:--

"The accepted spelling of the name 'Pepys' was adopted generally
about the end of the seventeenth century, though it occurs many
years before that time. There have been numerous ways of
pronouncing the name, as 'Peps,' 'Peeps,' and ' Peppis.' The
Diarist undoubtedly pronounced it 'Peeps,' and the lineal
descendants of his sister Paulina, the family of 'Pepys Cockerell'
pronounce it so to this day. The other branches of the family all
pronounce it as 'Peppis,' and I am led to be satisfied that the
latter pronunciation is correct by the two facts that in the
earliest known writing it is spelt 'Pepis,' and that the French form
of the name is 'Pepy.'"

The most probable explanation is that the name in the seventeenth century
was either pronounced 'Pips' or 'Papes'; for both the forms 'ea' and 'ey'
would represent the latter pronunciation. The general change in the
pronunciation of the spelling 'ea' from 'ai' to 'ee' took place in a large
number of words at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the
eighteenth-century, and three words at least (yea, break, and great) keep
this old pronunciation still. The present Irish pronunciation of English
is really the same as the English pronunciation of the seventeenth
century, when the most extensive settlement of Englishmen in Ireland took
place, and the Irish always pronounce ea like ai (as, He gave him a nate
bating--neat beating). A