“Uplanders”
Our Irish guide told us test the Irish who fled and settled in the mountains was how hillbillies got their name.
There is a lot of Irish and Scots language that makes up the Southern hillbilly dialect. My ancestors landed in the mountains of North Carolina and gradually drifted into Tennessee. We always stayed close to the mountains though.
My grandparents used a lot of funny words that never made a lot of sense to me until I got older and figured out they were a blend of Scots, Irish, and English.