Britain’s place names offer intriguing clues into local history and landscape. They are also a record of the waves of migration over the past several thousand years, with each group of people leaving their mark in the language. In the same way, settlers from England, Wales and Scotland created legacies in the names of the new lands they colonised in North America.
This is especially true of the original 13 colonies – now states – along the USA’s east coast where the first settlements were founded, including Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and, of course, New Hampshire. The settlers often gave their strange and sometimes challenging new homes names from the old world, such as Manchester, Salisbury, Wilton and Winchester to provide familiarity and comfort. In 1630, Boston was named after a market town in Lincolnshire.
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Where do British place names come from?
But let’s look at the origins of some of these names. Most British place names owe their origins to key influences: the Celts, Romans, Saxons, Vikings and Normans. From the Celts, who arrived around 1000BCE, we can trace the word Avon from ‘afon’, the Welsh word for river. So the River Avon is in fact, ‘river river’. Small dry valleys known as combes in England derive from ‘cwm’, which is Welsh for valley.
The Roman influence is best seen in the towns that grew up around their forts, known as castrae or castrum singular. So any town with chester, caster or cester in its name – such as Dorchester, Doncaster, or Worcester – is likely to have its origins in Roman Britain: 40–400CE.
The vast majority of our place names derive from old Germanic languages brought to Britain by the Anglo-Saxons who swept in as the Roman Empire crumbled, from 350–600CE. ‘Hams’ are farms and homesteads, found in names such as Evesham, Buckingham and Nottingham – and in the word ‘hamlet’ for small village. The ‘ing’ in these latter two names means ‘people of’ – so Buckingham means ‘home belonging to Bucca’s people’.
‘Ton’ another common suffix, means manor or settlement and is found in Acton, Honiton and hundreds more. ‘Bury’ or ‘burgh’ is a fortified settlement, ‘stow’ is a meeting place, and the suffix ‘-ney’ means island. ‘Pool’ as in Hartlepool or Blackpool means, well, pool. Or a creek/inlet.
The Vikings arrived in the 8th century and dominated much of north, east and central England – a region known as the Danelaw – and would probably have conquered the entire island and imposed their language everywhere but for defeat by King Alfred of Wessex at the battle of Edington in 878. Their influence can be found in many place names. ‘Thwaite’, as in Bassenthwaite, means ‘meadow’ or ‘woodland clearing’ and ‘thorpe’, as in Scunthorpe, means ‘small settlement’. Names ending in ‘-by’ signify ‘belonging to’ such as Whitby. ‘Ness’ is a promontory such as Sheerness, and ‘toft’ means house, as in Lowestoft.
The Norman presence can be encountered in French-derived names such as ‘Beaulieu’ or ‘Belvoir’ – ‘beautiful place’ and ‘good view’ respectively. They also created place names based on the ruling family in the area, such as Kingston Lacy (Kingston belonging to the Lacy family). Many of the modern names we use are hybrids of some or all of these influences.
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Top image: antique map of Boston, Massachusetts. Credit: Getty
