Bracketing (linguistics) - Rebracketing

Rebracketing is a type of folk etymology that can result in the creation of new words. An often cited example in English is certain common nicknames that begin with N, where the given name does not begin with N (e.g. Ned for Edward, Nelly for Ellen). In Old English, the first person possessive pronoun was mīn. Old English speakers commonly addressed family and close friends with "min ", for example, "min Ed". Over time, the pronoun shifted from min to mi and children learning the language rebracketed the utterance /mined/ from the original "min Ed" to "mi Ned" . Interestingly a similar process is responsible for the word "nickname".