(Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 2.)
A few adjective nicknames of Celtic origin are so common in England that they may be included here. Such are the Welsh Gough, Goff, Gooch, Gutch, red, Gwynn and Wynne, white, Lloyd, grey, Sayce, Saxon, foreigner, Vaughan, small, and the Gaelic Bain, Bean, white, Boyd, Bowie, yellow-haired, Dow, Duff, black, Finn, fair, Glass, grey, Roy, Roe, red. From Cornish come Coad, old, and Couch, [Footnote: Cognate with Welsh Gough.] red, while Bean is the Cornish for small, and Tyacke means a farmer. It is likely that both Begg and Moore owe something to the Gaelic adjectives for little and big, as in the well-known names of Callum Beg, Edward Waverley's gillie, and McCallum More. The Gaelic Begg is cognate with the Welsh Vaughan. Two other famous Highland nicknames which are very familiar in England are Cameron, crooked nose, and Campbell, wry mouth. With these may be mentioned the Irish Kennedy, ugly head, the name of the father of Brian Boru.
[CHAPTER XXIII BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES]
"As I think I have already said, one of Umslopogaas'
Zulu names was The Woodpecker."
(HAGGARD, Allan Quatermain, ch. vii.)
The great majority of nicknames coming under the headings typified by Bird and Fowell, Best, and Fish or Fisk (Scand.) are easily identified. But here, as everywhere in the subject, pitfalls abound. The name Best itself is an example of a now misleading spelling retained for obvious reasons-—
"First, on the wal was peynted a forest,
In which ther dwelleth neither man nor best."
(A, 1976.)
We do not find exotic animals, nor even the beasts of heraldry, at all frequently. Leppard, leopard, is in some cases for the Ger. Liebhart; and Griffin, when not Welsh, should no doubt be included among inn-signs. Oliphant, i.e. elephant—
"For maystow surmounten thise olifauntes in gretnesse or weighte of body" (Boece, 782)—