Narrating names

Almost as a by-product, however, I have been made aware of many instances in which farmers are designated by the names of their farms, usually in an abbreviated form ending in the ubiquitous "Doric" ee/-y/-ie, as in Middee for Midtown, Knockie for Knockhill and for Knockfullertree, Wardee for Wardmill, Inchee for Inchloan, Mossie for Moss-Side, Birley for Tillybirloch, Waulky for Waulkmill, Bogny for Bogindhu, Haddy for Hadagain, Hilly for Hillhead, Gouky for Goukstone, Scotty for Scottiestone, and so on. The farms in question are often called Waulkies, Bognies, Haddies, Hillses, Mucklies, Goulies, Knockies, Goukies, and the like, presumably with a possessive final "s." Not only is the farmer's name continued through generations, but it is often also transferred to new owners of the same farm. The official surname of the farmer is irrelevant.

My chief reason for drawing attention to this usage is to add yet another dimension to the variety of mapping operations which occur in addition, though not necessarily secondary, to the activities of the official cartographers. It is not only in the landscapes of the mind, of literary fiction, and of oral tradition, that names are narrated and narration creates names. There are also other processes which are part of the folk-cultural perspective of what some might regard as the real world out there. In the case of this particular naming practice, the landscape is structured in socio-onomastic, or rather socio-toponymic, terms and is seen as an intensely human habitat rather than as a surrounding environment, into which human culture infiltrates. It is, therefore, probably reasonable to posit that through this naming strategy landscape and society become one and that the farmers' names in question, in their particular abbreviated morphology--Knockie, Inchee, Gouky--imply a kind of intimacy which even the most accurate official map would never achieve.

On the evidence of this very selective set of vignettes, we can, presumably with some justification, transfer the Roman dictum about seafaring to the activities of storytelling and naming: Narrare et nominare necesse sunt.

References Cited

Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. The German Legends of the Brothers Grimm. Edited and translated by Donald Ward. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1981.

Kapfhammer, Gunther. "Stilistische Funktion der Namen in Marchen und Sagen." In Name Studies: An International Handbook of Onomastics, ed. Ernst Eichler et al. 2 vols. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1995-6.

Marshall, Howard Wight. "`Tom Tit Tot'--A Comparative Essay on Aarne-Thomson Type 500--The Name of the Helper." Folklore 84 (1973):51-7.

Nicolaisen, W. F. H. "Some Humorous Folk-Etymological Narratives." New York Folklore 3 (1977):1-14.

Nicolaisen, W. F. H. "Folklore and Names." Names Northeast 4 (1984a):67-76.

Nicolaisen, W. F. H. "Names and Narratives." Journal of American Folklore 97 (1984b):259-72.