It is generally agreed that the recently deceased Bo Diddley was not born with that name. Where he got it is a subject of conjecture.

An Associated Press obituary of the pioneer rock-and-roller says that he was born in Mississippi as Elias Bates, and: “The name Bo Diddley came from other youngsters when he was growing up in Chicago, he said in a 1999 interview. However, over time he gave somewhat differing stories on where he got the name. Some experts believe a possible source for the name is a one-string instrument used in traditional blues music called a diddley bow.”

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Wikipedia mentions the diddley bow theory, but concludes that Bo Diddley “is probably a southern black phrase meaning ‘nothing at all,’ as in ‘He ain’t bo diddley.’ ”

Wikipedia is on the right track, I think. I’m reasonably sure that I’d heard bo diddley before I heard of the performer who called himself such, and I know I’d heard diddley and diddley squat, both of which were commonly used to mean “nothing” or “worthless” or “excrement,” as in “He don’t know diddley [squat].” About the same time Bo Diddley was becoming famous, another early rock-and-roller was singing “My girl is red hot, your girl ain’t diddley squat.” Or maybe it was “doodley squat.” Same thing.

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While looking up diddley squat in the Dictionary of American Regional English, I came across diddy-wah-diddy, which happens to be the name of another Bo Diddley song. DARE says that diddy-wah-diddy is a Southernism used as “the name of an imaginary place, often conceived of as fabulous and far-off.”

“Oh, how they love in Diddy-Wah-Diddy,” Bo Diddley sang. A little earlier, another Southern artiste, Phil Harris, employed a variation: “Let me tell you ’bout a place called Doo-Wah-Diddy/It ain’t a town and it ain’t a city/But it’s awful nice and it’s awful pretty/and that’s what I like about the South.”

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