My story takes place in 19th century U.S. (1890s to be more specific). Im having trouble coming up with enough unique character NICKNAMES. Its a predominately Irish-American lower class neighborhood. Most of the people here know and refer to each other by nicknames. They can be anything really, either of Irish origin or just things someone might call someone else back in the 1800's. Any suggestions would be awesome. Thanks.
Something from the past they have done, last name nicknames, and how they act. I've come up with a couple names from thinking of those. Just remember to be funny with it because most nicknames aren't something the "nicknamee" has chosen (Unless it's as simple as last names or word play between the first and last names) Additional note: I'm also not a particular fan of names ending in 'y' or 'ie'. They become far too common and are sometimes uhm... un-creative. I'd stray away from them, but your decisions are your decisions, and you'll know what's best.
Back then, nick names would have been given based off of occupation or visible character traits. Freckles for the girl with many. Baker for the baker. find the slang words in Gaelic (if your community tries to keep with the old language at all) and see if any of those work for insults or pet names. For lovers pet names can be after foods like most cultures. We call our children "pumpkin" many times. The French like to call their kids cabbages. Go with descriptives for nick names. After all, isn't that what we still do today?
patty, sully, mic, murph...those are the ones that come to my mind, but they are all based on first or last names.
I grew up in an Irish Canadian community so I might be able to help but I'd need to know specifics of the characters. Personality traits, history, anything that stands out about them. Like BFGuru stated, we like to call our kids pumpkin. They also like to play on the name, or shorten last names, and nicknames tend to be silly. A few notable nicknames in my community: Gadget - Guy works with computers. Red - Big red headed fellow. Birdman - Guy jumped off of a roof Sometimes nicknames are random and you can't tell if it's the persons real name or if it's a nickname. If you're looking for Gaelic nicknames though that might be a little bit harder. Not sure how it is in Ireland, but the language is dying here.
