What's in a name?
Mar. 25th, 2020 03:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pensnestVery flat, Norfolk.
We had to go to a supermarket in North Walsham today for reasons too boring to relate, and on the way back I found myself musing on English place names, and what feels right. Since I was nine years old I have basically lived in the south eastern quarter of England, and there are some common name constructions that are embedded in the landscape. They are probably embedded further away than I've lived, though the farthest parts of this island—Cornwall, Wales, Scotland—have different histories and undoubtedly also different naming conventions.
Roman names seem to have been mostly wiped clean. London used to be Londinium, so it has hung on to that, more or less, but Aquae Sulis is now Bath, Verulamium is now St Albans. Colchester used to be Camulodunum—and apparently, the -cester or -caster or -chester suffix is not, as I'd thought, an actually Roman name, but was bestowed by the Angles and/or Saxons on a place that had been a Roman town or fort. See Chester, Leicester, etc. Norwich did have a settlement in Roman times (Venta Icenorum), but it wasn't quite where the city is now and was apparently demolished to steal the stones to build Northwic. Which name is (I think) Saxon. Wick or wich was usually something to do with a farm.
Thorpe, apparently, was a Danish word, meaning a little settlement near a big settlement. I live in Thorpe St Andrew, and there are several related thorpes about the place. 'Thorpe Hamlet' on tht basis seems a bit redundant.
I'm fairly sure that Angles and Saxons were different groups, but we seem to have been left with Anglo-Saxon things, such as place names, and they really did put their mark on those! "burh' was the name for a town, and we have lots of -burghs and -boroughs. Here in Norfolk we have Happisburgh (pronounced haysbruh), better known are Scarborough and Peterborough.
We have -bury as a suffix, meaning 'fortified place'. A ham (or hamm) was a village, and a lot of names end in -ham. Birmingham. Framlingham. Chatham. Whereas -by is apparently from the Danish, meaning 'village'.
That 'ing' appears to have two slightly different meanings—it could be 'the people of', so that Hastings came from Haesta's people. In the middle of the word, it might mean 'belonging to'. Works out pretty similar… at any rate the -ing-ham construction is incredibly widespread.
As is -ing-ton. -ton or -tun meant farm or hamlet, so, fair enough. -sted or -stead come from 'stede', meaning 'place'. -try comes from the Saxon word for tree. -ly, -ley and -leigh apparently came from a word meaning either a wood or a clearing in a wood. And 'mere' or 'more' mean a pond. Obviously there are quite a few related to something physical or geographical. We have -ford, obviously meaning a shallow river crossing. See Oxford. I grew up in Bedford, though I don't know where they would have forded the rather mighty river. I assume that -bridge probably came along rather later, so Cambridge, Tonbridge. How about Fordingbridge! Wald was the word for forest, and might turn up as a weald or wold. Combe and coomb mean 'valley', or may also be corrupted into 'comp'. Don or dun mean hill. I suppose there must be a few places with a more noticeable geographical connection written into their names - river connections, like Weymouth, Plymouth, Portsmouth. Great Yarmouth. Also, I guess, Wells. Leamington Spa. And sometimes the name comes from an event—like, say, Battle. (It's near Hastings.) Or the fact that the place had a market, eg Downham Market. Or… Ashby became a possession of the La Zouche family during the reign of Henry III, and it's now called Ashby de la Zouche. Pestilent Normans!
I was thinking about how new place names just don't seem to fit this country, unless they follow the sounds used in these names that come from nearly 2,000 years ago. Milton Keynes, as a name, feels weird, because it doesn't feel embedded, even though I think there's a village of Milton—a perfectly respectable English name—subsumed into the new town. There's a place in Norfolk called Hautbois, which I have to assume got its name from the Normans, though it's pronounced in a resoundingly Norfolk way (hobbis). Where did Hull and Leeds come from?
(Incidentally, Midsomer Norton is a real place!)
And what if you live in a country where the names are mostly not rooted in history/geography in the same way? Or where the names given by the people who lived there 2,000 years ago have been overwritten with names that don't bear any particular connection to the places they designate? Where Bedford'doesn't have a river that was once forded running through its centre, or King's Cross doesn't have the memory of a statue of George IV at a crossroads. How does that feel? Is it something you don't think about? Is it surprising to think of place names that *do* have a connection to their geography, history, or function?
OK. Shower time now, as we managed to do our yoga routine this morning on the new mats.
We had to go to a supermarket in North Walsham today for reasons too boring to relate, and on the way back I found myself musing on English place names, and what feels right. Since I was nine years old I have basically lived in the south eastern quarter of England, and there are some common name constructions that are embedded in the landscape. They are probably embedded further away than I've lived, though the farthest parts of this island—Cornwall, Wales, Scotland—have different histories and undoubtedly also different naming conventions.
Roman names seem to have been mostly wiped clean. London used to be Londinium, so it has hung on to that, more or less, but Aquae Sulis is now Bath, Verulamium is now St Albans. Colchester used to be Camulodunum—and apparently, the -cester or -caster or -chester suffix is not, as I'd thought, an actually Roman name, but was bestowed by the Angles and/or Saxons on a place that had been a Roman town or fort. See Chester, Leicester, etc. Norwich did have a settlement in Roman times (Venta Icenorum), but it wasn't quite where the city is now and was apparently demolished to steal the stones to build Northwic. Which name is (I think) Saxon. Wick or wich was usually something to do with a farm.
Thorpe, apparently, was a Danish word, meaning a little settlement near a big settlement. I live in Thorpe St Andrew, and there are several related thorpes about the place. 'Thorpe Hamlet' on tht basis seems a bit redundant.
I'm fairly sure that Angles and Saxons were different groups, but we seem to have been left with Anglo-Saxon things, such as place names, and they really did put their mark on those! "burh' was the name for a town, and we have lots of -burghs and -boroughs. Here in Norfolk we have Happisburgh (pronounced haysbruh), better known are Scarborough and Peterborough.
We have -bury as a suffix, meaning 'fortified place'. A ham (or hamm) was a village, and a lot of names end in -ham. Birmingham. Framlingham. Chatham. Whereas -by is apparently from the Danish, meaning 'village'.
That 'ing' appears to have two slightly different meanings—it could be 'the people of', so that Hastings came from Haesta's people. In the middle of the word, it might mean 'belonging to'. Works out pretty similar… at any rate the -ing-ham construction is incredibly widespread.
As is -ing-ton. -ton or -tun meant farm or hamlet, so, fair enough. -sted or -stead come from 'stede', meaning 'place'. -try comes from the Saxon word for tree. -ly, -ley and -leigh apparently came from a word meaning either a wood or a clearing in a wood. And 'mere' or 'more' mean a pond. Obviously there are quite a few related to something physical or geographical. We have -ford, obviously meaning a shallow river crossing. See Oxford. I grew up in Bedford, though I don't know where they would have forded the rather mighty river. I assume that -bridge probably came along rather later, so Cambridge, Tonbridge. How about Fordingbridge! Wald was the word for forest, and might turn up as a weald or wold. Combe and coomb mean 'valley', or may also be corrupted into 'comp'. Don or dun mean hill. I suppose there must be a few places with a more noticeable geographical connection written into their names - river connections, like Weymouth, Plymouth, Portsmouth. Great Yarmouth. Also, I guess, Wells. Leamington Spa. And sometimes the name comes from an event—like, say, Battle. (It's near Hastings.) Or the fact that the place had a market, eg Downham Market. Or… Ashby became a possession of the La Zouche family during the reign of Henry III, and it's now called Ashby de la Zouche. Pestilent Normans!
I was thinking about how new place names just don't seem to fit this country, unless they follow the sounds used in these names that come from nearly 2,000 years ago. Milton Keynes, as a name, feels weird, because it doesn't feel embedded, even though I think there's a village of Milton—a perfectly respectable English name—subsumed into the new town. There's a place in Norfolk called Hautbois, which I have to assume got its name from the Normans, though it's pronounced in a resoundingly Norfolk way (hobbis). Where did Hull and Leeds come from?
(Incidentally, Midsomer Norton is a real place!)
And what if you live in a country where the names are mostly not rooted in history/geography in the same way? Or where the names given by the people who lived there 2,000 years ago have been overwritten with names that don't bear any particular connection to the places they designate? Where Bedford'doesn't have a river that was once forded running through its centre, or King's Cross doesn't have the memory of a statue of George IV at a crossroads. How does that feel? Is it something you don't think about? Is it surprising to think of place names that *do* have a connection to their geography, history, or function?
OK. Shower time now, as we managed to do our yoga routine this morning on the new mats.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-25 07:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-27 09:14 am (UTC)From the colonies...
Date: 2020-03-25 11:29 pm (UTC)Re: From the colonies...
Date: 2020-03-27 09:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-26 03:37 am (UTC)Milton Keynes the town is named after Milton Keynes the village. The Keynes part is apparently Norman.
Ings (with the s at the end) is also a Norse word found up in the Danelaw, referring to marshes or water meadows. There's a Hall Ings road in Bradford.
Leeds is supposedly originally from very early Celtic, and Hull is properly Kingston upon Hull, so named after the river. No one ever seems to say where river names come from. I guess they're probably all very old.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-27 09:22 am (UTC)Ah, Normans. OK. I knew about Milton but I've always been puzzled as to where the Keynes came from. It seems such an odd addition. The classic place names with the ings and the hams and so forth seem to be well pre-Norman, so that even something as far back as the eleventh century seems jarringly modern. But there must be some of them around.
Leeds is Celtic! Awesome. And unexpected, since I associate it so much with the modernity of industrialisation, but that is no doubt a personal thing. The Kingston part makes more sense of Hull, but I'm sure you're right that the river name is pretty old. I can imagine that rivers might have got their names before settlements did, although in that case, why didn't they all get the same name? We should be all Avons and Ouses and not much else!
no subject
Date: 2020-03-27 10:41 am (UTC)I absolutely love looking at place names on the map as we're driving around. It's one of the things you sadly lose with satnav. On the other hand, these days you can look up the place names as you're driving.
Hah! I just looked up the other Leeds, in Kent, and supposedly that has a completely different derivation, from Old English.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-27 11:57 am (UTC)I tend to look for Georgette Heyer characters! Because she picked her names from maps, they always sound authentic, and it's fun thinking, ooh, Hethersett, that's from - okay, the name of the book escapes me at the moment, but Felix Hethersett was a fine, upstanding chap.
And the other Leeds... yep, word derivations are fascinating and strange. My Beast asked me a few days ago if 'troll' and 'toll' were related, on the grounds that trolls exact a toll for passing across their bridges. I have no idea, although my instinct is to say there's no connection. But if we taught this kind of thing in school there'd be a lot more understanding of what words really mean.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-01 04:15 pm (UTC)I think we have a similar situation with lakes. Many lake names are among our oldest words and we don't know where they came from or what they used to mean. But it makes sense as lakes have always been important to people, as a major source of food and the main way to travel.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-26 06:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-27 09:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-27 09:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-27 09:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-30 12:03 pm (UTC)The Danish influences were a surprise!
(I haven't charted my own DNA, and I'm unlikely to do so anytime soon -- for sooo many reasons -- but based on name etymology and a couple of other very minor details, I have a theory that I have a teeny, tiny bit of Norman ancestry. Whee, I'm a pestilence!! :)
no subject
Date: 2020-04-01 04:13 pm (UTC)Finnish place names are largely related to geography, though the meanings may not be immediately obvious to modern speakers. But most can be explained.
My current town is named after the rapids that run through it (and have been the main source of energy for it even in pre-industrial times), and my hometown after the type of forest (and ground) that grows there, which is easy to travel in.