abreviation on baptism

[amilne109]

While looking for a birth of Robert Clerk/Clark in 1729 I found the attached baptism.
Apr 6th "Roh Clerk husband to Helen Straton". Unsure as to whether it is "Rott" or "RoH".

Can anyone decipher and what does it mean.

Thanks

[gaffy]

Robt ?

[nanny jan]

It looks like  "Robt";  short for Robert.

[gowjani]

I thought it could be short for Robert as well, as the last two letters are set higher up than the others. Strangely a few lines further down Robert has been written out in full in another entry.

[amilne109]

I thought it may have been Robert but it says the child was baptized Robert (name given in full). It also looks like the last 2 letters are crossed (tt) at the beginning of the entry and in the margin at the end they look like H.
It may well be short for Robert, just seemed strange to have an abbreviation and full name in the one entry.
Thanks a lot for your input guys.

[xiaolu]

Robt is a well-know retro abbreviation for Robert as is Geo for George, Wm for William, Jno for John, etc.

Writing the last one or two letters as a superscript like the 2 in " x squared "  is also common, although a nuisance to try and represent in typing.

[Ruskie]

I agree it is Ro^bt.

Robert is the name of the father as well as the son.

I don't think it odd that the name is abbreviated in one instance and not in the other.Sometimes even spellings of the same word have been known to vary within a document, especially the further back you go. 

[goldie61]

I don't think it odd that the name is abbreviated in one instance and not in the other.Sometimes even spellings of the same word have been known to vary within a document, especially the further back you go. 

I'd agree with you Ruskie. I've seen it many times - even in court documents  where you'd think the scribes would be consistent with their spelling. Not so.

[Ruskie]

I don't think it odd that the name is abbreviated in one instance and not in the other.Sometimes even spellings of the same word have been known to vary within a document, especially the further back you go. 

I'd agree with you Ruskie. I've seen it many times - even in court documents  where you'd think the scribes would be consistent with their spelling. Not so.

Letter formations can differ too. I've been kicking myself for not saving a classic example of this which I saw ages ago: within a parish register (so only a couple of lines) one letter was written in three different ways.