In case anyone is wondering what the heck nicknames are - several surnames become so plentiful in an area that one needs a way to tell the various families apart and identify exactly which you are referencing, and thus came tweaking of the spelling and nicknames. The Ryan's, The O'Dwyer's and the O'Sullivan's used nicknames for sure, and some other septs may have done so as well. I have a list of several hundred Ryan nicknames with the place they were used cross-referenced. If you don't know where your Ryan's were from but do know the nickname they used, you can find the place for about half so far. Anytime you run across a nickname for any family, please send a message about it to add to the collection. Janet