Arising in obscure ways, often originating in derision or abuse or satire, sometimes repudiated by those to whom they are applied, at other times adopted in spite of the ridicule, the origin of nicknames is singularly elusive, and there are few words or phrases of which it is more difficult to trace the history. Moreover, nicknames are almost invariably associated in the popular mind with some person or place or thing having a similar name; and so a problem already difficult is made doubly so by the necessity of attempting to obtain information about very obscure persons. The history of nicknames usually follows one general course: those who, at the time of origin, perhaps know the real explanation, fail to record it, and then, a generation or so having passed by and the true origin having been forgotten, a series of guesses is indulged in.