Hearts Rooted to the Hearth.

Martin Lunghi

It seems that the Welsh and the Scottish cultures have something in common - aside that is, from their questionable Celtic ancestry and a simmering aversion to the English - and this is that both cultures employ surnames which singularly fail to be singular. In other words, the common surnames don't distinguish adequately between people and the addition of a first name only improves the situation slightly. Accordingly, it gets pretty confusing when talking about Tom Jones, Evan Evans. Duncan Campbell, Archie McGregor, etc. when you realise that the local community may well boast half a bar-full of each.

Naturally, in areas where gossip is the life-blood of the community, this is more than confusing, it's downright inconvenient.

Traditionally surnames signalled belonging and group/family membership and it was only in relatively cosmopolitan regions, such as ports and major cities, that there was a sufficient admix of individuals to permit the surname to serve as a unique identifier. Where that was not the case, - as on the Islands - it was likely that some other means would evolve.

One familiar strategy is to forget about the surname altogether and to use the 'christian' name along with some other identifier and there are two distinct possibilities here.

If you ever go to parties on the mainland you'll know that this can often involve mingling with hoardes of complete strangers, most of whom you hope heartily never to meet again. (Island parties are, of course, subtly different.)

During evenings inexplicably spent in this way, the two most frequent questions tend to be. 'Well. what do you do, then?' to be closely followed by, 'So, where do you live/come from?'

People sort of relax once these questions are out of the way because it enables them to pop each other into slots, to form appropriate expectations of each other and to fashion their mercurial and insubstantial party images to suit their audience of the moment.

'So what?' I hear you say. Well, the thing is that these questions neatly highlight two important sources of our identities, in that we tend to think of ourselves largely in terms of what we do (function) and where we live/come from (place) so that either function or place can be attached to a person's christian name to uniquely describe them. In this way, with respect to function, Tom Jones the shopkeeper becomes 'Tom the Shop' and as such is distinct from Tom Jones the gravedigger who becomes 'Tom the Graves'.

Certainly, the Welsh make extensive use of function in this way. often to comic effect as with 'Dy the Death' (undertaker) and 'Evans Above' (minister - or perhaps hang glider). Moreover, many traditional surnames already incorporate function, reflecting the possible occupations of distant forebears, e.g. Farmer, Smith, Cartwright, Priest, Clerk and so on. To some extent this same naming practise exists on Coll as with Neil Shop (1991 Coll Mag.) and Iain Post but it's not widespread. This may be because function as an identifier works best where the number of types job and the number of working people is about equal. Where the number of people goes up (immigration, baby booms, improved hygeine, diet. etc.) and/or the number of types of job goes down (goods/processes become obsolete or unfashionable: depletion of stock/raw materials. etc.) then either we have several people doing the same type of job or doing no job at all - so function doesn't distinguish: 'Duncan the Unemployed' could apply to quite a few. This may have pertained on Coll in the mid 19th. century (see Swiss visitors account of Coll. p.).

Where, on the other hand, the population goes down (emigrations, war, disease, etc,J ood/or the number of occupations goes up (industrialisation. fashion. entrepreneurial efforts. etc.) we find that, of necessity, each working person can have a number of different occupations – so, again, function can fail to adequately identify the person. This is more true of Coll at the present time where being involved in several different activities is common. This may be why, when a visitor to the island asks. 'And what do you do here'?' there's a distinct hesitation before replying because the question really doesn't have the same salience for the islander as for the mainlander.

The alternative naming system with which we're familiar here on Coll involves the use of a place name (usually house name) after the christian name so that we talk of Allan & Katriona Ballard. John Lonban, Johnnie Glaic, and so on. In the case of John Lonban, my small boy used to get function and place confused since John used to be the 'bin man' and so became John Lonbinbanman!

That the Welsh make less use of 'place' as an identifier is hardly surprising since so many of their place names are compound descriptions and 'Tom-the-house-by-the-tree-near-the stream-in-the-shadow-of-the-big-hill' doesn't trip easily off the tongue.

As can be seen from the above examples, one of the problems in recent times is that people increasingly change occupation and place of residence. Johnnie no longer lives at Glaic and John neither lives at Lonban nor works at the bin run so that in an odd sort of way, the change of place and function represents a loss of identity (as with home sickness, culture shock, retirement. etc.). Eventually, however, the person becomes identified with the new place or job or receives some sort of nickname reflecting any peculiarity of appearance or behaviour, as with 'Big Duncan'. 'Red Hamish' or 'Dancing Jones'. etc. Increasingly too, nicknames have been based on T.V. soap operas, cartoon characters, etc. Some such names even have the added advantage of venting hostility - no local examples!

From the above argument, we can see that as a population becomes more cosmopolitan - true of Mull and Coll but probably less so of Tiree and the Outer Isles - so the need for -the old 'place' and 'function' naming systems diminishes. And yet 'placenaming' may still survive in rural Scotland since traditionally, the attachment of the person to his native spot is seen as very strong. This is perhaps romantically expressed in the following lines from the Glasgow National of 1842:-
 
'They (Highlanders) are exceedingly attached to their glen. Their associations are all within it. Their affections - all the flower and beauty of their lives - are rooted and grow like red buds of the coarse grass in the clefts of the rocks, out of their bare, bleak, wild mountain home. Their hearts are rooted to their hearths.'