332 " FISHER NAMES. 



(i.e. additional), or, as the local pronunciation has it, "tee" 

 names, must be used. At a public dinner held at Buckie 

 several of the fishermen were present ; and it was notice- 

 able that the gentlemen of the press were careful, in their 

 reports of the proceedings, to couple with the real names of the 

 men the appellations by which they were best known — as " Mr. 

 Peter Cowie, 'langlegs,' proposed the health, etc." So, upon 

 all occasions of registering births, marriages, or deaths, the " tee" 

 name must be recorded. If a fisherman be summoned to answer 

 in a court of justice, he is called not only by his proper name, 

 but by his nickname as well. In many of the fishing villages, 

 where the population is only a few hundreds, there will not, 

 perhaps, be half-ardozen surnames, and the whole of the inhabit- 

 ants, therefore, wiU be related " throughither," as such inter- 

 mixture is called in Scotland. The variety of nicknames, 

 therefore,'is wonderful, but necessary in order to the identification 

 of the different members of the few families who inhabit the 

 fishing villages. The different divisions of Buckie, for instance, 

 are inhabited by different clans ; on the west side of the river or 

 burn there are none but Reids and Stewarts, while on the east 

 side we have only Cowies and Murrays. Cowie is a very com- 

 mon name on the shores of the Moray Firth ; at Whitehills, 

 and other villages, there are many bearing that surname, and 

 to distinguish one from the other, such nicknames as Shavie, 

 Pinchie, Howdie, Doddlies, etc., are employed. In some 

 families the nickname has come to be as hereditary as the sur- 

 name j and when Shavie senior crosses "that bourne," etc., 

 Shavie junior wiU stUl perpetuate the family " tee " name. All 

 kinds of circumstances are indicated by these names — personal 

 blemishes, peculiarities of manner, etc. There is, in consequence, 

 Gley'd Sandy Cowie, Gley'd Sandy Cowie dimipie, and Big 

 Gley'd Sandy Cowie ; there is Souples, Goup-the-Lift, Lang-nose, 

 'Brandy, Stottie, Hawkie, etc. Every name in church or state 

 is represented — kings, barons, bishops, doctors, parsons, and 

 deacons ; and others, in countless variety, that have neither 

 rhyme nor reason to account for them. 



As an instance of the many awkward contretenvps which occur 

 through the multiplicity of similar names in the northern fish- 

 ing villages, the following may be recorded : — In a certain town 

 lived two married men, each of them yclept Adam Fluoker, and 

 their individuality was preserved by those who knew them 

 entitling them as Fleukie (Flounder) Fluoker, and Haddie 



