London the Biography by Peter Ackroyd

“Bruce R. Smith has suggested that ‘cockney’ in fact derives from the ‘cock-shaped weathervane’, which once surmounted the belfry of St. Mary-le-Bow and that the Londoners’ identification with the sound came from their own ‘loud loquaciousness’ or ‘boastfulness.’”

—Peter Ackroyd, 2000