Quite a large number of the diggers were known by nicknames; in most instances these quite superseded the original patronymics.
"Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer"
W. C. Scully
Mortimer Nevil-who would have dreamt of lighting on, perhaps, the two proudest patronymics of baronial England, in a log hut crowning the ridge of the Alleghanies?
"Border and Bastille"
George A. Lawrence
An ingenious author of the last century, himself born on Tweed-side, declares that those Scotch families whose patronymics end in "son," although numerous and respectable, and descended, as the distinctive syllable denotes, from the Vikings, have seldom been pre-eminent either in peace or war.
"Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War"
G. F. R. Henderson