The extremely pointed toe was called the "winkle picker" because in England periwinkle snails, or winkles, are a popular seaside snack which is eaten using a pin or other pointed object to extract the soft parts out of the coiled shell carefully, hence the phrase: "to winkle something out", and based on that, "winklepickers" became a humorous name for shoes with a very pointed tip. Other countries had other humorous names, e.g. in Norway and Sweden they were called "myggjagere/myggjagare", literally "Mosquito chasers". They are still popular in the raggare and rockabilly subcultures. In some parts of the U.S. they are called "roach stompers".