What’s In A Name? Part 1

You see place names everywhere, but how often do you stop and think about what they mean? Place names can actually tell you a lot. For example, about people, history andlandscape. Who lived in this area? Who invaded and what did the landscape used to be like? 

The East Midlands is likely to have been inhabited for over 100,000 years. And place names have changed over the centuries. However, many names still denote past inhabitants and invaders – Celts, Romans, Danes and Anglo-Saxons all left their mark.

You find more Celtic names in north-west Derbyshire than anywhere else in the East Midlands. That suggests that the Celts stayed there longer than in other areas of the region. But they lived here too. It is thought that Lenton in Nottingham is based on Celtic, namely the name for the river ‘Leen’.

In Roman times, Latin was not spoken by most peasants of the region, but there is still some evidence of Roman settlement in names, such as Margidunum (near Bingham) in Nottinghamshire.

The Anglo-Saxons came over from the European continent in the early Middle Ages (during the 5th and 6th centuries). They introduced Germanic names for places, including endings such as -field (as in Mansfield and Ashfield). This comes from the Anglo-Saxon word meaning ‘open ground’. Some historians think these place names prove that Sherwood Forest could not have stretched unbroken from northern Nottinghamshire to Nottingham. The earliest record of Sherwood Forest dates from 986, when it was referred to as Scyryuda and later Scyrwuda, meaning ‘county wood’.

Nottingham was originally called Tigguo Cobauc, meaning ‘a place of cave dwellings’. The earliest evidence of a name which may be more familiar to you came in the late ninth century, when is appeared in the Domesday records as Snotingeham. This means ‘settlement of the family of Snot’. It likely came from an original Saxon word where -inge appears in place names following a person’s name. It means ‘the people or followers of’, so that Snotingehman stands for ‘the homestead of Snot’s people’. It changed again, and below you find out why.  

The language we now use in the East Midlands also owes much to the Vikings, following their invasions from Denmark that resulted in the Danelaw – the part of England in which the laws of the Danes dominated those of the Anglo-Saxons.

The ending -by (as in Thoresby) probably came from the Danish word for ‘town’. You see the same in place names which tell you about their (former) surroundings. For example, Linby means ‘village with lime trees’ and Kirby and Kirkby mean ‘village with a church’. Another frequent Viking input is -thorpe or -thorp meaning ‘settlement’, such as Easthorpe and Westhorpe. This ending was also added to personal names, such as Sibthorpe. You also see personal Viking names appear in places such as Gonalston, from Gunnulf.

Viking influence is also evident in other places, even where you would least expect it. For example in street names, where gata means ‘way’ or ‘street’, such as Goosegate or Fletcher Gate (which took its name from the butchers or ‘flesh hewers’ who were located there).

Finally, an important influence came from the Normans. They invaded Britain in 1066. The Normans spoke French. Their officials travelled around the country, asking local people about place names. Important spelling changes were made to help French speakers. For example, consonant clusters at the beginning of names were sometimes simplified to be easier for French speakers. Thus, Snotingeham became Nottingham. The Normans also used the prefix ‘bel’ (or 'beau' meaning ‘fair’ or ‘lovely’) for villages with nice scenery, such as Beauvale near Eastwood.

So, place names can tell you where we come from. They mark people and can change over time, but still give us a sense of identity. How strongly we cling to that identity is shown by the merchandising we buy in places. But that is a subject for another day!

To learn more about the colloquialisms and dialect of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, see What's in a name? Part 2.

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This blog was written by Natalie Braber, Professor of Linguistics at Nottingham Trent University.