Habitative elements of English place­names usually occur as the second element of a compound place­name. However, examples of habitative elements occurring in the first position are not unknown. Tonbridge (Kent), composed of the Old English tun and brycg, is believed to mean "bridge belonging to the estate or manor" (Mills, p. 332). Wickmere (Norfolk) is composed of the Old English elements wic and mere, meaning "pool by the dwelling or dairy farm" (Mills, p. 358).

The first element in a typically formed habitative name is adjectival. Adjectival elements come from a wide assortment of words: personal names or folk names, adjectives indicating age, size, color or situation, direction, topographical elements including rivers, plants wild and domestic, animals wild and domestic, industry, or buildings associated with the settlement. From personal names we have place­names like Hildersham (Cambridgeshire) which means "homestead of a man called *Hildric" (Mills, p. 370), and Homerton (Greater London) meaning "farmstead of a woman called Hunburh" (Mills, p. 132). Folk names often contain the element ­inga so Effingham (Surrey) is "homestead of the family or followers of a man called Effa" (Mills, p. 118) and Framingham (Norfolk) is "homestead of the family or followers of a man called Fram" (Mills, p. 136). Compound names with adjectives as the first element are represented by Breadenham (Buckinghamshire) where the first element means "broad" (Mills, p. 46), Glatton (Cambridgeshire) which means "pleasant farmstead" (Mills, p. 144) and Horham (Suffolk) meaning "muddy farmstead" (Mills, p. 178). Habitative names containing directions are Narborough (Leicestershire) meaning "north stronghold" (Mills, p. 238) and Westcote (Gloucestershire) "westerly cottage(s)" (Mills, p. 352). Color in habitative names is fairly rare but Whitby (Cheshire) meaning "white stronghold or manor­house" (Mills, p. 356) is one example. Features of the landscape are common: Fenwick (Northumbria) means "dwelling or (dairy) farm in a fen or marsh" (Mills, p. 130), Compton "farmstead or village in a valley" (Mills, p. 88) and Dunton (Norfolk) "farmstead on a hill" (Mills, p. 112). River names appear in Exton (Somerset) on the river Exe (Mills, p. 125) and Frampton (Dorset) on the river Frome (Mills, p. 136). Plants occur in such formations as Ashwick (Somerset), from the presence of ash trees (Mills, p. 15), Mapledurham (Oxfordshire) from the presence of maple trees (Mills, p. 222) and Brompton (North Yorkshire) from the presence of broom (Mills, p. 54). Crops are represented by Barton "barley farm" (Cameron, p. 144) and Flaxton "flax farm" (Cameron, p. 144). Habitative names from animals include Shipdham (Norfolk) from a flock of sheep (Mills, p. 294) and Foxton (Cambridgeshire) from the presence of foxes (Mills, p. 135). Industry is represented in Sapperton (Lincolnshire) "farmstead of the soap­makers or soap­merchants" (Mills, p. 285). Milton (Cumbria) "farmstead or village with a mill" (Mills, p. 231) and Burham (Kent) "homestead near the fortified place" (Mills, p 59) demonstrate a prominent building occurring in a habitative name.

Topographic names are the third major type of English place­name. Originally, all of these were names of features of the landscape. Those that are now settlement names have been transferred from the topographical feature to a settlement nearby. In early Anglo­Saxon documents this was indicated by inserting the Old English preposition æt or Latin ad in front of the place­name (Ekwall, p. xix). Stratford­on­Avon appears in a document from 691­2 as Æt­stretfordæ, meaning (the settlement) at the ford by which a Roman road crosses the river (Ekwall, p. 449). This sort of elliptical use survived in some cases into Middle English. When the preposition was dropped from Atten ashe, the name became Nash, because the final consonant of the preposition became the initial consonant of the new place­name (Ekwall, p. 336). The same process occurred in the name

Topographic names occur in both simplex and compound forms. Simplex forms are represented by Lea (Derbyshire) and Eye (Cambridgeshire) from the Old English elements leah meaning variously "wood, woodland clearing or glade, later pasture, meadow" (Mills, p. 382) and eg meaning variously "island, land partially surrounded by water, dry ground in a marsh, well­watered land, promontory" (Mills, p. 382). Most topographical names are compounds consisting of an initial adjectival element and then a topographic element such as leah or eg. Adjectival elements include personal names, colors, types of soil, position, location or condition, the names of trees, wild plants or crops, and wild and domestic animals and birds. The topographic element in the name could be a natural feature of the landscape such as a hill, valley or plain, a type of country such as marsh, wood or moorland, a body of water such as a river, stream, pool or sea, small portions of land defined by the landscape or a human­created or used element such as a barrow or ford.

Examples of topographic names are not hard to find. Topographic names containing a personal name include Edgmond (Shropshire) "hill of a man called Ecgmund" (Mills, p. 117) and Edingale (Staffordshire) "nook of land of the family or followers of a man called *Eadin" (Mills, p. 117). Blackmoor (Hampshire) "dark­coloured pool" (Mills, p. 39) and Grinlow (Derbyshire) "green hill or mound" (Mills, p. 149) demonstrate topographic names containing colors. Types of soils are found in Clayhanger (West Midlands) "Clayey wooded slope" (Mills, p. 82) and Stanfield (Norfolk) "stony open land" (Mills, p. 306). Position is indicated by Upwood (Cambridgeshire), meaning "higher wood" (Mills, p. 340). Dalwood (Devon) shows a location: "wood in a valley" (Mills, p. 102). Condition is indicated by Windle (Lancashire), Defford (Herefordshire and Worcestershire) and Hendon (Greater London) meaning respectively "windy hill" (Ekwall, p. 522), "deep ford" (Mills, p. 103) and "(place at) the high hill" (Mills, p. 168). Tree names cam be found in Oakley (Bedfordshire) "wood or clearing where the oak­trees grow" (Mills, p. 246), Withycombe (Somerset) "valley where the willow­trees grow" (Mills, p. 366) and Birchover (Derbyshire) "ridge where birch­trees grow" (Mills, p. 37). Examples of topographic names containing wild plants are Gorsley (Gloucestershire) "woodland clearing where gorse grows" (Mills, p. 146) and Redmire (North Yorkshire) "reedy pool" (Mills, p. 270). Flaxley (Gloucestershire) is a topographical name containing the name of a crop (Mills, p. 133). The name of wild animals are found in Deerhurst in Gloucestershire (Mills, p. 103) and Foxt in Staffordshire (Mills, p. 135). Names of domesticated animals are found in Callerton (Northumbria) and Shiplake (Oxfordshire), meaning "hill where calves graze" (Mills, p. 64) and "sheep stream" (Mills, p. 294). Bird names can be found in Dunnockshaw (Lancashire) "small wood or copse frequented by hedge­sparrows" (Mills, p. 111) and Ousden "valley frequented by owls" (Mills, p. 250). Islip (Northamptonshire) shows the use of a river name in a topographic name "slippery place by the River Ise" (Mills, p. 188).

The influx of Danes and Norwegians, beginning in the mid­ninth century was the next major influence on English place­names. Both groups spoke dialects of Old Norse. They primarily affected the names of northern England, where the Danes settled in the eastern parts and the Norwegians mostly in the west. The exact details of Danish and Norwegian settlements are a matter of disagreement among scholars, but the effects on English place­names are clear. The Scandinavians created new names, substituted their words for similar English cognates and changed the sounds in existing English place­names.

Most Norse place­names in England are habitative names. The majority of these are compounds ending in by or thorp. By, at the time of its use in England, meant "village" (Fellows Jensen, p. 6) and thorp "secondary settlement, dependant outlying farm or hamlet" (Mills, p. 384). In general, names ending in ­by are older than names ending in ­thorp. Both are typically combined with personal names, but may also be combined with other categories of words including groups of people, topographic terms and adjectives. Thorp also appears as a simplex name, because of its meaning of a secondary settlement.

Norse habitative names are usually formed with Old Norse personal names, but a few are found which contain English and Irish given names. Kettlethorpe (Lincolnshire), which contains the Old Norse name Ketil (Mills, p. 194) and Asenby (North Yorkshire), which contains the name Eysteinn, (Mills, p. 13) are typical of this type of name. The Old English name Baldhere occurs in Baldersby in North Yorkshire (Mills, p. 21).

Norse habitative names containing groups of people include nationalities, sex, station and occupation (Fellows Jensen, p. 13). Examples of nationality are found in Ingleby (Derbyshire), which indicates an English settlement (Fellows Jensen, p. 30) and Irby (Lancashire) an Irish settlement (Fellows Jensen, p. 31). An example of sex in a habitative name is Whenby (North Yorkshire) "of the women" (Fellows Jensen, p. 41). An occupational name occurs in Copmanthorpe (North Yorkshire) "outlying farmstead or hamlet belonging to the merchants" (Mills, p. 90).

Norse habitative names may also contain adjectives or topographical elements. Examples of names containing adjectives are Austhorp "east thorp" (Fellows Jensen, p. 51) and Mickleby "large farmstead" (Mills, p. 229). Names containing a topographic term include Barrowby (Lincolnshire) containing the word hill (Fellows Jensen, p. 20) and Sowerby (North Yorkshire) containing a word meaning "mud, dirt, sour ground" (Fellows Jensen, p. 38). A name frequently found in England is Kirby or Kirkby meaning "church­village" (Fellows Jensen, p. 229).

A small number of Norse topographical names exist in England. These can be simplex or compound. Examples of simplex names of this type include Wath (North Yorkshire) "the ford" (Mills, p. 348) and Holme (Nottinghamshire) "island, dry ground in marsh, water­meadow" (Mills, p. 175). Hanlith (North Yorkshire) "slope or hill­side of a man called Hagni or Hogni" (Mills, p. 156­7), Ulpha (Cumbria) "hill frequented by wolves" (Mills, p. 339) and Thornthwaite "thorn­tree clearing" (Mills, p. 329) are examples of Old Norse compounds.

Other names are compounds of Old Norse and Old English elements. Old Norse given names are found combined with English habitative and topographical elements and vice versa. Old Norse given names combined with tun are believed to have been formed when a Norseman took over a village or manor, in which case his name was substituted for the original (Gelling, p. 232). Examples of this type of name are Nawton (North Yorkshire), which contains the Old Norse name Nagli (Mills, p. 239) and Thruxton (Hampshire), which contains the Old Norse name Thorkell (Mills, p. 327). Ullswater (Cumbria) combines Old Norse Ulfr with Old English wæter (Mills, p. 339) while Levenshulme (Greater Manchester) combines Old English Leofwin with Old Norse holmr (Mills, p. 209). Dunholm, the original form of Durham, is a compound of Old English dun "hill" and Old Norse holmr "island" (Mills, p. 112).

Old Norse and Old English had many similar sounding words with the same meaning, such as their words for stone stan in Old English and steinn in Old Norse. Old Norse cognates have been substituted for Old English elements in some names. For instance, Stainton is a Scandinavianized form of Stanton (Ekwall, p. 436), both of which usually mean "tun on stony ground" (Ekwall, p. 438). The Old Norse rauthr is believed to have been substituted for Old English read, both of which mean "red", in names like Rawcliffe and Rawmarsh (Ekwall, p. 382).

Old Norse also caused sound changes inside wholly English place­names. While Old Norse and Old English are similar, some English sounds caused problems for the Scandinavians. Two sounds in particular were a problem: "sh" and "ch". The normal sound represented by Old English sc occurs in the beginning of Shipton, but the same name is now Skipton in Scandinavian areas. Likewise, Cheswick is the normal English form of a name found in Scandinavian areas of England as Keswick (Ekwall, p. xxv).

The final major influence on English place­names was the Norman conquest in 1066. Because this was generally a settlement of political overlords rather than of large groups of people, this did not cause massive renamings nationally or locally. A certain amount of naming and renaming was done, of course, but the greatest effect was in sound changes.

Many of the new French names were compounds of the pattern demonstrated by Beaumont "beautiful hill" and Beauchief "beautiful headland or hill­spur" (Mills, p. 28). Others were French place­names brought over and bestowed on English places. Richmond and Grosmont are examples of these types of names, though in the case of Richmond (North Yorkshire) at least, the meaning "strong hill" is entirely appropriate to the site. Rougemont and Ridgmont are French descriptive names of the sites of the villages (Reaney p. 194). The monastery of Rievaulx combined the name of the Rye river with Old French vals meaning valley (Reaney p. 194). Substitutions of French elements for English elements also occurred in place­names, of which ville for feld is the most common (Cameron, p. 89). Enville (Staffordshire) occurs in the Domesday Book as Efnefeld (Mills, p. 123) and Turville occurs in the form Thyrefeld in 796 (Mills, p. 336). A few new names were also coined from Norman given names or surnames and English elements. Williamscot in Oxfordshire (Mills, p. 360) and Johnby in Cumbria (Mills, p. 190) are examples of what are probably late formations of this type.

The greatest influence of the Norman Conquest on English place­names occurs in spelling and pronunciation. This was because there were many sounds in English names unfamiliar to the Normans. They solved this by modifying the English names to make them easier to pronounce. These changes form recognizable patterns, but the patterns are not universally applied; many English forms were retained in the end. The following are only a few examples of the changes that occurred. The Norman influence appears in many names containing ceaster, in which they substituted c for ch, as in Gloucester, and t for st as occurs in Exeter in Devon (Ekwall, p. xxviii). The loss of an initial s occurs in Nottingham, which was originally Snotingham (Ekwall, p. xxviii). A t was substituted for th in Turville (Buckinghamshire), which appears in the form Thyrefeld in 796. Jarrow (Tyne and Wear) shows a change from g to j. It occurs as Gyruum, Girwe in 1104­8 and by 1228 as Jarwe (Ekwall p. 268). It was also Norman influence that changed n to r in Durham, which was originally Dunholme (Cameron, p. 92).

A final aspect of English place­names are affixes. These additions to the place­names usually occur as separate words such as Nether, St. Peter or Courtney. These serve as additional identifiers added to the name after it is formed. Most of these occur in records for the first time in the thirteenth century, though a few occur in the Domesday Book and many appear later (Cameron p. 107). There are two types of affixes: descriptives and owners. Descriptives could be that of direction (East, Middle, Lower, in Ribblesdale), size (Great or Magna, Little or Parva), shape (Broad, Long), distinguishing features (Cold, Broad Oak, Steeple), products (Flax, Iron, Beans), church dedications (St. Martin, St. Cuthbert) and so forth. These descriptives could occur before or after the actual place­name: Castle Rising occurs in Norfolk (Mills, p. 273), Sutton Coldfield in West Midlands (Mills, p. 316). Some location information occurs in a string of words as occurs in the name Hope under Dinsmore in Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Church dedications usually occur after the village name proper as in Chalfont St. Peter.

Ownership affixes occur as given names, surnames and generics. Burton Agnes (Humberside) is derived from the name of Agnes de Percy (Mills, p. 61), and Hemingford Grey (Cambridgeshire) was once owned by the de Grey family (Mills, p. 167). Monks Risborough (Buckinghamshire) which was once owned by the monks of Christchurch, Canterbury (Mills, p. 273). In Temple Ewell (Kent) the affix Temple indicates ownership by the Templars (Mills, p. 125).

Reflected in the history of English place­names is the history of England. The waves of conquest and settlement were accompanied by new languages, each of which left their mark on English place­names. In the names themselves, however, one has the opportunity to glimpse the world through medieval man's eyes. There are the broad brush­strokes of the landscape ­ hills, valleys, forests and bodies of water in all their variety. Information important to a farmer is often included in a name: the characteristics of the soil ­­ stony, clayey, sour, wet or dry, how the land was used ­­ fords on streams and rivers, hills for beacon fires, pastures for herds, clearings for crops and the presence of predators and pests such as foxes, wolves and crows. On a more intimate level, one gets glimpses of the finer details ­­ a copse of hedge­sparrows, a stream filled with otters, a clearing filled with gorse, willows in a valley. This detail provides a different, more personal view of the past than the sweeping pictures of history. For both the large and the small view, this is a subject worthy of further study.

by Kristine Elliott

Bibliography
Cameron, Kenneth. English Place­Names. London: B. T. Batsford, 1961.
Ekwall, Eilert. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place­Names. 4th edition.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960.
Fellows Jensen, Gillian. Scandinavian Settlement Names in Yorkshire. Copenhagen, 1972.
Gelling, Margaret. Signposts to the Past. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1978.
Mills, A. D., A Dictionary of English Place­names. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Reaney, P. H. The Origins of English Place­Names. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960.