Mackem

"Mak'em" is an informal name for residents of and people from Sunderland, a city in North East England. Spelling variations include "Mackem", "Makem", and "Maccam". It is also a name for the local accent (not to be confused with Geordie); and for a fan, whatever their origin, of Sunderland A.F.C.

One explanation for the term mackem is that it stems from "mackem and tackem" with mackem as a corruption of the local pronunciation of "make them" (roughly "mack 'em") and tackem from "take them." The expressions date back to the height of Sunderland's shipbuilding history, as the Sunderland shipwrights would make the ships that would sail down the River Wear which would take them to the sea. A variant explanation is that the builders at Sunderland would build the ships, which would then go to Tyneside to be outfitted, hence from the standpoint of someone from Sunderland, "we make 'em an' they take 'em." The term could also be a reference to the volume of ships built during wartime on the River Wear, e.g. "We make'em and they sink'em".

Whatever the exact origin of the term, mackem has come to refer to someone from Sunderland and its surrounding areas, in particular the supporters of the local football team Sunderland AFC, and may have been coined in that context. Newcastle and Sunderland have a history of rivalry beyond the football pitch, dating back to the early stages of the English Civil War, the rivalry associated with industrial disputes of the 19th century and political rivalries after the 1974 creation of Tyne and Wear County.

Evidence suggests the term is a recent coinage. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest occurrence of it in print was in 1988. The phrase "we still tak'em and mak'em" was found in a sporting context in 1973 in reference to Sunderland Cricket & Rugby Football Club. While this lends support to the theory that this phrase was the origin of the term "Mak'em", there is nothing to suggest that "mak'em" had come to be applied to people from Sunderland generally at such a date. The name "Mak'em" may refer to the Wearside shipyard workers, who during World War II were brought into shipbuilding and regarded as taking work away from the Geordies on Tyneside.

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