Mr. Gismondi's English Classes



Jane Doe

Prof. X

EN404 Research Paper

4 April 2007

The Influences and Origins of English Place-Names

Looking at the origins of place-names in Great Britain help tell the history of the country. There were many influential factors that acted on the place-names. Spellings of place-names have varied over time. Invasions from the Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and the Normans in Britain have left their traces in this country and influenced the naming of towns and cities. Lastly, places were named either for topographical or habitative features. Understanding why and what places were named for is the first step to understanding etymology of place-names.

The majority of place-names fall into two categories: topographical and habitative. Topographical place-names have to do with feature of the area such as the Old English (OE) words for grass: gærs, græs, gres and heg, found in names like Garsdon and Grasmere (Copley, 41). Places were also named that described the trees that grew: the place-names Acomb, Aughton, and Acton are derivations from the OE ācum meaning “at the oaks” (42). The second type of place-name is habitative signifying the inhabited place such as a farm, homestead, cottage, village, etc. Two examples of habitative names include Wandsworth meaning “Wændel’s enclosure” and Higham meaning “high homestead” (Cameron, 27).

Awareness of the changing in spelling to some place-names needs to be kept in mind. Many English place-names spellings that originated before 1066, the Middle English (ME) period, have been lost with early documents; so the original spelling of the word may be unknown. Because of this loss, the majority of early spellings come from the Middle English period (Cameron, 19-20).

Also, keep in mind that various spellings of a word have meant the same thing at some point in time. Northwich in Cheshire, Northwick in Gloucestershire, and Norwich in Norfolk all mean “northern dwellings or dairy farm” and originated at the same time (18). The similar meanings, but different spellings, may be the effect from another language’s influence that has been isolated to certain areas of England, such as the Danelaw.

According to Kenneth Cameron, there are a few major changes that happened from Old English to Middle English in spelling. One change was a loss of medial syllables in names. For example, Wulfrīcestūn in Old English meaning “Wulfrīc’s farmstead” has lost frīce and has become Wolston in Warwickshire. The medial -ing- has also been lost in names such as Ickleton from Icelingtūn “Icel’s farmstead” (23).

The next change Cameron mentions is the shortening of long vowels or diphthongs is another modification. Today’s equivalent of the OE stān is stone, but the shortening of ā to ō in during the 13th century changed the original name Stāntūn to Stanton. If the vowel had not have been shortened, places that are named Stanton would, today, be spelled Stoneton (23).

Cameron mentions one more alteration: the weakening of the unstressed vowel in the second element of a place-name. Longden meaning “long hill” and Grendon meaning “green valley” would have been spelled Longdon and Grenden. The interchangeability of –don and –den occurred in the 16th century when the OE equivalent forms of dūn “hill” and denu “valley” were changed in ME to down and dene and were pronounced alike. (23-24).

The next step, after understanding that changes to place-name has occurred, is being able to recognize what changes have occurred. P. H. Reaney reminds his readers, “No place-name student claims infallibility. He admits that some etymologies are difficult and doubtful and that, at present, some names cannot be explained… it is his duty to give his reasons and to support his alternative [from prescribed etymological explanations] with evidence” (2). Modernization of spellings from scribes who copied manuscripts is another reason for the variations of forms (Cameron, 21). Therefore, when looking at etymology of place-names a person must look for the original spellings, which have been influenced by many other languages.

Place-names did not appear out of no-where. They were originated by some group of people. The Celts were the first known pre-English inhabitants of Great Britain and is the starting point of this study of the origin of place-names. There is one problem that etymologists must take into consideration when looking for Celtic influence on place-names: “The Celtic languages involve problems of pronunciation, loss of consonants, affection, and lenition unknown in Germanic [language]” (Reaney, 72).

G. J. Copley suggests that the Anglo-Saxon’s may not have understood the meaning of some words. The most common example of this occurrence of misunderstanding is in evident in the place-name Pendle Hill, in Lancashire. There is a redundancy in the meaning when the name is translated. Pendle was a Celtic phonetic development from penn “hill” (136).

According to Cameron, the sound system between Celtic and Old English differed in some places which resulted in the sound-substitution. For instance, The Celtic word Eglēs became Eccles “church” because Old English did not have the medial -g- and substituted -c- for it (34). However, the changes from Common Celtic to modern Celtic languages are not clearly known (Reaney, 71). With this in mind, etymology of Celtic place-names must be thought of as possibilities instead of definite.

There exist many place-names in which the original Celtic name is obvious. Some place-names have no known meaning but absolutely have Celtic origin, such as Aln, Ellen, and Severn (Cameron, 37). There are names in which the first part is clearly Celtic in which the Roman ceaster, cæster “city, town” has been added to the end. For example, Corinium, today called Cirencester meaning “town on the Churn” and Danum today called Doncaster meaning, “fortress on the Don” (35). The fusing of Roman words onto Celtic names makes sense since the Romans were the next to inhabit Great Britain.

According to Jonathon Culpepper, the Romans had been first started making attacks on Britain around 54 and 55 BC. It was not until 43 AD, under Emperor Claudius, that Rome had officially taken control of Britain. The Roman influence on place-names “Latinised” the Celtic forms. London was said to be based on the Celtic personal name Londinos meaning “the bold one” changed to Londinium to look more like Latin (2-3).

C. M. Matthews states that the Roman’s main contribution was a few common nouns that were transferred from Latin into English. Earlier, ceaster was mentioned as a Roman influence on English place-names. He also mentions other words borrowed from Latin, such as strata, which was named for a paved road but today means “street,” named for towns on Roman roads such as Stratford and Streatham. The word vallum was borrowed by the Romans for a well-built wall, and portus “a harbor or market”, which is different from porta “a gate”, which often make up the second element of English place-names (28).

The Roman Empire stayed in Britain till 410 AD, and went back to Rome because of attacks by Germanic tribes were weakening the Empire (Schmitt and Marsden, 20). They are known for leaving behind “fine buildings” (20) but “almost no [place-] names of their own creation” (Matthews, 28). Out of 326 place-names of natural features and inhabited spots recorded in The Ordnance Survey Map of Roman Britain, about 60 are still used in some form or are barely recognizable because they “lacked staying power” (28-29).

It was the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons that brought the German language to Britain which made up the majority of Old English vocabulary (Schmitt and Marsden, 25). Today’s English is an offshoot of the West Germanic language; so, the place-names created during this time are referred to as “English names.” The Anglo-Saxon immigrants consisted of three powerful Germanic tribes: the Jutes, the Angles, and the Saxons. These three groups gave their names to Essex (“east Saxons”), Middlesex (“middle Saxons”), Sussex (“south Saxons”), Wessex (the old name for the south-west territory meaning “west Saxons”) and East Anglia (Culpepper, 4).

Many of the place-names created by the Anglo-Saxons were simply a description of what they saw or what was of most important to them (Matthews, 35). These names survive mainly in the East and South-East (Copley, 138). The most commonly discussed place-name ending from this settlement period is the OE -ingas, now expressed as -ings or -ing. The form –ingas is the plural of OE –ing. It is hard to trace whether the original name ended in the singular or plural form which may cause etymologists problems looking at meanings.

The singular form was added to personal names to denote “son of, descendant of” like in Ælfred Æpelwulfing meaning “Alfred, son of Athelwulf” (Matthew, 63-64). However, place-names that ended in the singular form did not generally mean “son of”. It may have meant “stream” or “place” and was added on to names that contained plants, such as Clavering “place where clover grows”; birds, such as Hawkinge “hawk-wood”; or an adjective, such as Deeping “the deep place” or “deep fence” (Reaney, 112).

The plural form is often found in place-names such as Rēadingas (spelled today, Reading) which was named after and denoted a group or dynasty of people lived there. However, P. H. Reaney warns that there is no evidence that all names ending with -ingas were derived from a man or ancestor’s name. The place-name could be based on the inhabitants of the area. For example, Epping means the “upland dwellers” and Avening “dwellers by the Avon” (106-107). As seen in the examples given, the names are given in the singular form, but many ended in the plural form in Old English. In fact, only a few place-names have retained the plural form such as in Hastings, Cannings, and Barlings.

According to Kenneth Cameron, -ingas is the only surviving place-name type that is limited to this period of settlement (63). However, as the Anglo-Saxons migrated to other parts of the country, they added more onto the endings to establish the new place-names from the others. The most common endings were –ingham and –ington. Meanings have changed over time and may cause etymologists problems, just like the lack of retention of the plural form. Thus we need to look at both meanings in Old English and of today.

C. M. Matthews mentions the ending -hām denoted a dwelling place but today has the meaning “home” or “farm” since the Angles and Saxons were farmers. The ending -tūn denoted a fence but changed meaning to “farmstead, village” when farms and villages over took the enclosed area (38). Both name-endings –ham and -ton may be translated as “farm” or “village” along with –worth and –wick (40). A few other name-endings that existed during the Old English period involved burgh “fortified place” now written –borough; burna “stream” written as –bourn; feld “open country” written as –field; and lēah “wood, glade” written –ley (Cameron, 66).

Another branch of German speaking people, the Vikings, came from Scandinavia, and had an impact on place-names when they invaded Britain in the 8th century. The language of this group is called Old Norse. Scandinavian influence is mostly confined to the three areas of England the Vikings settled in called the Danelaw, a treaty between Saxon King Alfred and Guthrum the leader of the East Anglian Danes. Danelaw included Northumbria, East Anglia, and the eastern part of Mercia (running approximately from Chester to London).

Old Norse and Old English are both off-shoots of the Germanic language and have some similar words. However, according to C. M. Matthew, there are some words that are of only Scandinavian origin and not English, or have a different form. The most common element is by which was the equivalent of the English tūn (78). One source said that by was replaced in some cases by tūn (78) and another said that Old English byrig replaced the element (Cameron, 80), but in all of these elements have a habitative meaning of “farm,” dwelling place,” or “fortified place.”

Old Norse has also loaned the word þorp meaning “secondary settlement, outlying farm.” The current spelling of this word is –thorpe and can be found in place-names such as Ashwellthorpe, Ashtonthorpe, and Kilton Thorpe. This element is often confused with the Old English þorp (today spelled –thorp) meaning “hamlet, outlying farm” (Cameron, 78). The geography of the place-name hints to what language the place-name originated from or was influenced by.

There were a few other words that were derived from Old Norse. C. M. Matthews mentions the words Thwaite, the equivalent of OE lēah, meant clearing or meadow; garth, closely related to “garden” or yard”, meant an enclosure; and kirk, replacing the word “church,” was a result of pronunciation changes (78-80).

Pronunciation differences between English and Old Norse cause some spelling differences. Matthews points out the English “ch” sound was replaced with its hard equivalent. The Old Norse karl is parallel to the English charl found in the name Charlton. Likewise, the English ‘sh’ is written as ‘sk’ the areas that were occupied by the Scandinavians. The southern Shelton corresponds to the northern Skelton which was probably a mispronunciation of the Old English ‘sc’. Lastly, the sound ‘g’ is the equivalent of the English sound ‘dg’ (79-80).

The last people to invade, and in this case conquer, England were the Normans. They were a descendant of the Vikings that occupied the northern part of France, more as a diversion to those who would want to invade France. Monastery and castle place-names in England are where the Norman influence is primarily found.

C. M. Matthews says the majority of these names are not directly of French origin. A French word may have been blended with an Old English word. One example of this happening is found in Yorkshire. Haltwistle is the combination of OE twisla “fork of a river” and the French word hault “the high fork.” Names may have been changed to mean the opposite of the original. For example, the town Beaumont, meaning fair hill, in Essex replaced Fulepet meaning foul pit. The Norman names reflected the enjoyment the French took in the area and the element bel or beu meaning beautiful is found in many place-names of Norman influence (99).

There are very few place-names in England that are completely of Norman origin, and these English place-names were taken from places in France. Matthews mentions only one castle that is completely French in origin: Richmond in Yorkshire. The name is taken from Richemont in Normandy, meaning the rich mount and was named by Count Alan of Brittany. The first element, rich, is thought to be a derivation from the French word ric, related to the Latin rex meaning royal, noble or powerful, and Count Alan had “royal” status. Another palace Richmond, located on the Thames near London, was built by Henry VII was named after the Count Alan’s Richmond (100-101).

New monasteries in England were sometimes named after places found in France. The Marmont Priory, a new monastery in England established during the Normans’ conquest, was named after Mormonde, a convent in Lot et Garonne, France (Reaney, 194). Also, Freemantle (in Hampshire) meaning “cold cloak” (froid mantel) is another place-name taken from a name given to a forest in Normandy, Fromantel (Matthews, 100).

There were a few other languages and influences, such as Christianity, that acted on the place-names of Great Britain making them what they are today. Also, the influences of the different languages mentioned in this paper go way more in-depth, but remember what Reaney said, “No place-name student claims infallibility” (2). Knowing a few facts, like the ending –ing came from the Anglo-Saxons, the hard sounds of Old Norse and the Normans were fascinated by naming and re-naming monasteries and castles, give new students a starting point in studying English place-names.

Works Cited

Cameron, Kenneth. English Place-Names. Portman Square, London: B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1961.

Copley, G. J. English Place-Names and their Origins. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1970.

Matthews, C. M. Place Names of the English-Speaking World. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972.

Reaney, P. H. The Origin of English Place-Names. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960.

Schmitt, Norbert and Marsden, Richard. Why Is English Like That?: Historical Answers to Hard ELT Questions. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 2006.

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