1688 baptism record interpretation

[1JC]

Can someone help me interpret this baptism record. It is the baptism of George Stirling the youngest child of Patrick Stirling and Isobell Carmichell at Leith South, Scotland
What I don’t understand is:
-   The significance of the name before Patrick (Tho Docoass?)
-   Why there is a sponsor named (John Stirling) and what the role of this sponsor might be.
There is no sponsor named or name before Patrick in all the other five baptism records for children of Patrick and Isobell.

[Forfarian]

The Deceast Patrick Stirling and Issobel Carmichaell had A S born the 22 and bap the 25 Octor 1688 N George Witt David McLaren Rot Muire and John Stirling sponsor.

The significance of the mystery word is that Patrick died before George was baptised.

I think the sponsor may be required because the child is (obviously) not being presented for baptism by his father, but I am not sure what exactly John Stirling undertook to do as sponsor.

[Bookbox]

I believe the child’s name is George Will(iam), not George Witt. A horizontal contraction mark across the last two letters makes double l look like double t. It's a fairly common abbreviation -- there’s another example in the first line of this extract.

ADDED - a query about the word ‘sponsor’ in this context was raised in an earlier thread and answered there by GR2 (see reply #4)
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=657657.msg5035978#msg5035978

[Forfarian]

I disagree. I think that what looks like Witt is an abbreviation for Witnesses, hence the contraction mark. And Scotland's People seem to think so too because their index just says plain George, not George Will or anything else. So does FamilySearch's. And the same hieroglyphic appears in the last line of the previous record.

And the reason I think the sponsor is in loco patris is because of the case I myself quoted in that very thread.

[Bookbox]

You may well be right.

[1JC]

Brilliant!
This has been unbelievably helpful for me. I did suspect the sponsor was there because the father had died before baptism but I had not twigged to The Deceased...

The Will or Witt is most definitely an abbreviation for Witness. All the baptism entries for that parish in those years had the exact same abbreviation.