A short story about UK placenames

The study of the history of placenames is characterized mainly by careful reconstruction and also a bit of guess. Remember that placenames pre-date written data. This work of reconstructing placenames is a matter of etymology. There are some influences/factors which contribute to the formation of placenames. Let´s see what they are.

1. Folk information: Some placenames derived from the group of people who first settled in a determined area. For example, Sweden literally means “the Swedes”.

2. Nature information: Some placenames give information about the natural features of the area. It can be found references to a range of flora in placenames. Although the natural world of the countries of today would not be recognizable to the Anglo-Saxons, the placenames they left reveals features of their natural world. For instance, “Ousden”, which was originally compounded by the “uf” and “denu” means Owl´s Valley.

3. A variety of languages: as some other cultures and languages were in contact with Old English, there are influences of those languages. We are speaking about Celt, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian influences.

* The Celts.

Celts were one of those many tribes living in Europe in the years before Christ. They settled in England. Celt influence on placenames can be regarded most abundantly in the North and West (especially in Wales and Cornwall). They also give names to many rivers. It is remarkable that fact that the survival of Celtic placenames in some areas must partly reflect the lack of domination of Romans in those areas.

Celtic elements include: 

Element	Definition
Aber	mouth of a river
Coombe	a deep valley
Pen	a hill tor a hill

* The Romans

After 300 years of calling the British Isles their own, the Celts were conquered by the Romans. So, England was the north-west corner of the Roman Empire. And Although the Romans occupied the country for over 3 centuries, they only left behind approximately 300 placenames. This strongly suggests that the Romans tended to use existing Celtic placenames, and even latinization of existing Celtic placenames occurred.

The main Latin elements in placenames are:

Element	Definition
Castra (-chester, -caster)	a Roman town, fort
colonia (-coln)	a settlement
Porta (-port)	a gate
Portus (-port)	a harbor
Strata (strat-, -street)	a Roman road

As with Celtic elements, there are very few names that contains Latin element. A good reason for it is the already mention latinization of Celtic placenames.

*The Anglo-Saxons.

The Angles, Saxons and Jutes began to invade British Isles in 449 AD, coming from Denmark and the coast of Germany and Holland. The Anglo-Saxons named their new country Engaland (the land of the Angles) and their language was called Englisc. And thousands of English placenames were created by Anglo-Saxons in England.

Main Anglo-Saxon elements in placenames are: 

Element	Definition
burna (-borne)	a brook, stream
dun	a hill
eg (-ey)	an island
ingas (-ing)	the people of ...
leah (-ley)	a clearing
well	a well, spring
worth	an enclosure, homestead

Most of the processes for creating placenames were joining words to form other words; that is, there is a compounding process. And a dominant trend in Anglo-Saxon placenames was that they took on the name of the tribal leader. For instance, in Chippenham, we can find that the first element is a male name: Cippa.


* The Scandinavians
From 789AD onwards, the Vikings arrived at the British Isles. But from the 9^th to the 11^th centuries they came to settle alongside the Anglo-Saxons. They were established in the Danelaw. The Scandinavian languages –Old Norse and Old Danish- had the same Germanic roots as Old English and so, over years, existing placenames were adjusted. One of the main consequences of the Scandinavian influence was that it provoked the increasing of linguistic differences between the north and the south of England.
Scandinavian placenames elements includes

Element	Definition
-bekkr (beck)	a farmstead or settlement, then a village.
-by	a farmstead or settlement, then a village.
-darl	a dale, valley.
- ey	an island
-gathr (garth)	a yard, open space
-thorp	an outlying farmstead of hamlet
- toft	a site of a house and outbuildings

-Map of the Danelaw

For further information about the elements which intervenes in the formation of placenames, follow this link: Etymology of British place-names