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.