The -by has passed into English as ‘by-law’ meaning the local law of the town or village. Place names ending in -thorpe, such as Scunthorpe. The -thorpe names are connected with secondary settlement, where the settlements were on the margins or on poor lands. There are 155 place names ending in -thorpe in Yorkshire.
Why do place names end in by?
Place names with the ending ‑by are well-known in Denmark, e.g. Valby and Næsby. The word by originally had the meaning ‘place to live. ‘ In Danish, though, the meaning must have turned into ‘village’ very early because it is extremely rare to find single farms with names in ‑by in Denmark.
Why do villages end in Ton?
Ton: This word ending, that remains very familiar today, was used to describe a settlement. A name ending in ton refers to a farmstead or village. Wich, wych or wick: This relates to some sort of specialised farm, and turns up in places like Droitwich, Nantwich, and also the Aldwych in London.
Why do English towns end in ham?
It comes from Old French hamelet, a diminutive form of hamel, which was itself a diminutive form of ham ‘village’. This was borrowed from a Germanic word related to English home, and to the -ham in many English place names.
What does Thorpe mean at the end of a place name?
A thorpe was an outlying farmstead, one that probably relied on a larger settlement nearby for protection. Thwaite comes from the Norse thveit, meaning a clearing or meadow. By far the most common is -by which means farmstead or village.
Why do British towns have weird names?
Roman contributions to British place names come mainly through their Latinisation of pre-Roman names. A Celtic name that had been rendered by earlier Greek visitors as Pretanniké became the Roman Britannia; an ancient name of obscure meaning became Londinium.
What was England’s original name?
Englaland
The name “England” is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means “land of the Angles”. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages.
What does Ford mean in town names?
shallow river crossing
Towns and Villages
| Anglo Saxon Word | Meaning | Examples of place name |
|---|---|---|
| ford | shallow river crossing | Stamford |
| ham | village | Birmingham |
| hamm (a different way of spelling of ham) | enclosure within the bend of a river’ | Southhampton Buckingham |
| hurst | wooden hill | Staplehurst Chislehurst |
Why do places end in Shire?
Shires in the United Kingdom. “Shire” also refers, in a narrower sense, to ancient counties with names that ended in “shire”. These counties are typically (though not always) named after their county town. The suffix -shire is attached to most of the names of English, Scottish and Welsh counties.
Why do towns end in Bury?
That’s because the suffix “-bury” derives from the Anglo-Saxon “burh,” meaning “a fort or fortified place.” So when you drive along I-84 from Waterbury to Danbury, passing Middlebury and Southbury along the way, you’re traveling a well-fortified route.
What does Wick mean in a town name?
Suffix Wich or Wick From Anglo-Saxon Wic. The suffix wich or wick in many of the place-names including Greenwich , Warwick , etc ., comes from the Anglo-Saxon wic meaning a village ; this in turn , states a writer in the Detroit News , is apparently an adaptation of the Latin vicus for village .
Why does everything end with shire in England?
“Shire” is just the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of the old French word “county”, so Yorkshire, for example, means “County of York”. A couple of them you have to manipulate a bit, presumably because Lancastershire and Chestershire were a bit of a mouthful; but it’s still fairly obvious where the name came from.
Why are places called Piccadilly?
The theory behind the name Piccadilly is that it comes from “pickadil” was a lace attachment to a collar popular in Elizabethan times and that the places in London and Manchester were named because this is where they were sold.
What was Yorkshire called in Viking times?
The Danes changed the Old English name for York from Eoforwic, to Jorvik.
What did Vikings call their villages?
-torp: þorp meaning village.
What did Vikings call England?
Danelaw
| Danelaw Danelagen (Danish) Dena lagu (Old English) | |
|---|---|
| England, 878 | |
| Status | Confederacy under the Kingdom of Denmark |
| Common languages | Old Norse, Old English |
| Religion | Norse paganism (mostly Norsemen) Christianity (mostly Anglo-Saxons) |
What is the weirdest English town name?
Boggy Bottom, Cockermouth, Cockfosters, Crudwell, Greedy Gut, Greensplat, Ha-Ha Road, Moofield, Mudchute, Mudford Sock, No Place, Once Brewed/Twice Brewed, Penistone, Pratt’s Bottom, Pucklechurch, Queen Camel, Rotten End, Sandy Balls, Scratchy Bottom, Spanker Lane, Tiddlywink, Tokers Green, Upperthong, Ugley, Westward
Why do English towns end in Ford?
The ‘ford’ bit, as elsewhere, denotes a crossing over a river (the Wye). ‘Here-‘ may come from an Anglo-Saxon word for an army, or else the Welsh name for the old Roman road that passed this way.
Why do Roman towns end in chester?
The Romans also left plenty of place-name evidence of their presence. The suffix -chester comes from the Latin castrum meaning encampment.
Is the UK depressing?
British people are among the most depressed people in the Western world, according to new data. The rankings from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) place the UK in joint seventh place for adults reporting they have depression out of 25 countries from across Europe and Scandinavia.
Do Saxons still exist?
While the continental Saxons are no longer a distinctive ethnic group or country, their name lives on in the names of several regions and states of Germany, including Lower Saxony (which includes central parts of the original Saxon homeland known as Old Saxony), Saxony in Upper Saxony, as well as Saxony-Anhalt (which
