Deena, I agree with you, but I think you left a few out.

H and G.  Huizar vs Guizar; Huerta vs Guerta.
I and E.  Carrion vs Carreon; Arteaga vs Artiaga.
The S at the end can always be dropped.  Conchas vs Concha; Campos vs 
Campo; Correas vs Correa; Torres vs Torre.

Also you can combine some of the rules; for example...LL equals a Y, 
which in turn equals an I.  I have seen Ayon spelled Allyon, Ayyon, 
Allon, Alon, Aion and of course Ayon.

Also you have to think about bad handwriting: a, u, and o generally 
look similar.  For example, Gaeta vs Gueta.  Godina vs Godino.

And some letters are doubled or not: l, s, t, and r.  Valensuela vs 
Valenssuela; Torres vs Tores; Enrriques vs Enriques.

There are several articles on genealogy.com that talk about many of 
these rules.  They talk about names in general but I think some of 
the rules may apply to Spanish surnames.  Two of the articles are:

Spelling Doesn't Count --> http://www.genealogy.com/62_donna.html
Name and Word Spellings --> http://www.genealogy.com/00000015.html

Hope they are useful.

Angie Godina

--- In ranchos@yahoogroups.com, "Deena Ortiz" <drortiz@v...> wrote:
> For starters  ;-)
> 
>         The name "Dionicio" and "Leonicio" appear to have been used
> interchangeably.
> 
> Maria del Carmel called Carmel or Carmen
> Josefa and Sanjose
> Jose, Josef, Joseph
> 
>         I had not thought of name variation in terms of spelling as 
there
> were no standardized spellings.  For example:
> 
> Anything with an "s" could also be found with a "z" and sometimes 
a "c" or
> an "x."
> The letter "b" could always be substituted for "v."
> "F" was often spelled with "ph."
> The Spanish "ll" was frequently spelled with "y" or one "l" might be
> dropped:
> The "h" may or may not be there: Ortega/Hortega
> The letters "i" and "y" are interchanged; sometimes "hi" and "y" are
> interchanged:  Hilario/Ylario
> The letter "j" is frequently spelled with "x" or sometimes "g": 
Tejeda,
> Texeda, Tegeda
> The letter "t" is frequently interchanged with "th": Torres/Thorres 
or
> Marthin/Martin
> "U" is spelled with a "V": Ulloa/Vlloa
> 
>         That said, I have found Xauregui spelled at least ten 
different
> ways; the same family may have used a shortened form of the 
spelling as in
> Xaure or Jaure while others spelled it Xauregui, Jauregui, Xaurigui,
> Jaurigui, Xaurigue, Jauregui, Hauregui, Haurigui, Xaurequi, 
Jaurequi,
> Xauriqui, Jauriqui, etc.
> 
>         When I started my research, I was surprised to see that the 
accent
> marks and other punctation marks associated with Spanish were not 
used.
> Also, anything that could be abbreviated often was.
> 
> ~Deena Ortiz~