Nicknaming Patterns and Traditions among Cape Breton Coal Miners

SINCE THE BEGINNING OF European settlement on Cape Breton Island, coal has played an important role in the island’s economy and history. Several studies have examined the industry’s sporadic development from the coastal mining of the 18th century in a pre-industrial society to the adaptation to an industrial society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and a post-industrial society at the end of the 20th century.1 In addition to its important economic role, the coal industry has also influenced the social history and culture of the mining communities. As David Frank has pointed out, “The formation of the mining community in Cape Breton involved a complex pattern of persistence, accommodation and innovation. In responding to the industrial conditions the coal miners drew upon the various social and cultural resources at their disposal”. One of these cultural resources is the oral tradition, which “was inherently innovative and implicitly democratic, and thus was able to respond