As is now becoming habit, I had intended to write about something else this month but got waylaid by life, events and a political landscape that’s increasingly uncomfortable to live within. A certain Mr Browne was breathing down my neck and muttering about deadlines, obligations and “where is my article you feckless hopalong”*.
So, instead, I rang my friend Stuart and asked how his boat repairs were getting on.
As I opened up the relevant app it struck me that very few people in my recent call log had their full government name next to them. Family and life partners don’t really count, but why are so many people in my contacts as NAME + UNIQUE ASSOCIATION?
Stuart, for example, is listed as ‘Crab Fleet Stu’. He was previously ‘Crab Boat Stu’, but then he purchased a second boat so he had to be upgraded. I remember briefly flirting with ‘Admiral Stu’, but that would only have made sense if he had previously been ‘Captain Stu’. All of this clearly takes some explaining, notwithstanding the fact that his boats are for lobster pots, not crab… but lobster doesn’t really scan, does it? Too many lumpy syllables.
There’s a curious thing about Welsh idiosyncrasies that the media and tourist boards are happy to lean into, but they don’t seem to hold true for most of Wales – certainly not the bits north of Brecon. These include the use of distinctly Welsh vernacular that really only applies to the south: the fondness for asking “whose coat is that jacket?”, and the need to vaguely append a profession to the surname.
‘Jones the Milk’ could be either someone who delivers the milk or a dairy herdsperson. ‘Williams the Veg’ is more likely to be a grocer than a gardener, and ‘Evans the Spark’ is almost certainly an electrician. Of course, within Scribehound world there can only be one Jones the Journo.
The reason, sentimentally immortalised in the film The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain, is claimed to be simple: there are few surnames in Wales but plenty of professions – so you have to immediately define which local Jones, Evans or Williams you refer to.
While this certainly is true in the southern half, it is, in my experience, less common up here among the Gogs. Here things are split into two very clear formats of nomenclature: NAME + FARM or DARKLY COMIC AND NEEDS EXPLANATION.
For the former, it makes sense. The Welsh have a beautiful range of descriptive, poetic and occasionally genderless forenames. In the last month I have conversed with a Rhydian, a Mair, two Hefyns and an Irwedd. While they may be uncommon on the other side of Offa’s Dyke they are not worth commenting upon here in first-language Welsh North Wales. As such, combining a first name with an equally descriptive farm or property name is a perfectly sensible route to take – Geraint from the farm Maesannod becomes Ger Maesannod. Sian Pant Glas, Brinle Pen y Bryn, Tommy Gwerni. All are in my phone as such.
The second category is trickier, and requires a careful assessment of your audience before you use one aloud. These slightly bizarre, always darkly comic nicknames aren’t suitable for every professional field, or even for this esteemed platform. Particular care has to be taken when sharing a contact from one phone to another. Try explaining to a contractor why landowner Mr Griffiths is in my phone as ‘Llama’, due to his unusually long neck and habit of spitting while talking.
Of course, these are not specific to North Wales, but I suspect they are more common in environments where physical skill and toil are more valued than the ability to order a flat white while answering a Slack message.
Take Paul, one of the livestock handlers at a market somewhere south of here. He isn’t what you would call tall, nor is he blessed with a speedy metabolism. He is shaped more like a turnip than a man, which is why he is known as ‘Five By Five’.
Five foot tall, five foot wide. It makes sense when you meet him.
Our local butchers employed a Steve, who was short but not noticeably so. When they expanded and employed another Steve, they became ‘Little Steve’ and ‘Big Steve’ respectively. When, unreasonably, a third Steve was employed in the cutting plant he was more than a little miffed to discover he was now known as ‘Average’.
Then there is ‘Crystal Keth’, a New Age traveller called Keith, but he is missing an eye, ‘Dave Ja Vu’, ‘Pothole’, and ‘Too Tall Tom’. Dave Ja Vu says everything twice. Pothole is someone you swerve to avoid. Too Tall Tom really is. ‘Sunflower’ had his neck vertebrae fused together after a motorcycle accident, so now has to turn his whole upper body to face you during conversations.
I canvassed friends around the UK, searching for more suitable examples. Some are really not appropriate for publication here. A friend in Herefordshire has his younger sibling in his phone contacts as ‘Spare’, someone I grew up with works alongside a ‘KitKat’, who lost a finger to a pig and has four remaining, and I was informed of the existence of ‘Feral Pete’, who lives in a field in a caravan, has lots of kids, and is not fond of washing. ‘Flipper’ is a senior police officer with a bald, bulbous forehead and ‘Trolley’ rarely heads in the direction you point him.
There is a lower order of vocational nicknames, with terms that have become overused and can be found in haulage yards, farms, building sites and forestry gangs across the UK. ‘Bluetooth’ only works when paired with someone. ‘Cordless’ works well for 90 minutes, then is useless. ‘Bungalow’ does not have much upstairs. ‘Blister’ arrives as soon as the work is done.
I challenge you, dear reader, to scroll through your own phone contacts and see if there are any unusual or inexplicable listings. Names that made sense at the time but are now lost, like the knowledge of the Library of Alexandria or those old episodes of Doctor Who and Steptoe and Son that the BBC wiped over back in the 1960s.
Who is Jump Leads Dave? Do I still have his jump leads, or does he have mine? Who is Anita Kayak? Does she need one? Who are Bob, Bobby and, indeed, Boberella? Is Deano Mitsubishi still knocking around, and does he remember me? For I, alas, do not know who the hell he is.
There’s a parallel here with other obscure naming patterns: the names of fields, drives on a shoot, or half-forgotten bends in a lane. They made sense at one time, possibly only to a very small group of people who did not record their methodology, but somehow made sure the name stuck. As others have observed, you can also see this in hyper-local route descriptions: “turn left by Jim’s house, just after the elm tree that isn’t there anymore”. That sort of thing.
As the kids say – let me know in the comments what nicknames and pseudonyms crop up in your worlds.
And for those who are deeply invested in the tale – Crab Fleet Stu did get the boat fixed. Sump Pump Jason sorted it out.
*My solicitors require me to point out that this is an approximation of what he said. The actual conversation involved me asking him about “what defines a British redneck?” and him replying with “I will tell you if you write your Scribehound article.”
