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Pronunciation and spelling There are three pronunciations of the surname Halley. The most common, both in Great Britain[3] and in the United States,[4] is /ˈhæli/ (rhymes with "valley"). This is the personal pronunciation used by most Halleys living in London today.[35] The alternative /ˈheɪli/ is often preferred for the man and the comet by those who grew up with rock and roll singer Bill Haley, who called his backing band his "Comets" after the common pronunciation of Halley's Comet in the United States at the time.[36] Colin Ronan, one of Halley's biographers, preferred /ˈhɔːli/. Contemporary accounts spell his name Hailey, Hayley, Haley, Haly, Halley, Hawley and Hawly, and presumably pronunciations varied similarly.[37] As for his given name, although the spelling "Edmund" is quite common, "Edmond" is what Halley himself used, according to a 1902 article,[1] though a 2007 International Comet Quarterly article disputes this, commenting that in his published works, he used "Edmund" 22 times and "Edmond" only 3 times,[38] with several other variations used as well, such as the Latinised "Edmundus". Much of the debate stems from the fact that, in Halley's own time, English spelling conventions were not yet standardised, and so he himself used multiple spellings.[2]