What's in a Name?
Place Names : Folk Names
Of the three groups of place names, folk-names form the smallest group though
nevertheless a very important and interesting one. Place-names in this category
were originally the names of the inhabitants of a place or district. Thus tribal
names came to denote the district occupied by the tribe, as with Essex and Sussex
(both old Anglo-Saxon kingdoms), and Norfolk and Suffolk (divisions of the Anglo-Saxon
kingdom of East Anglia). The names Jarrow, Hitchin, and Ripon also represent
tribes (later their territories) from Anglo-Saxon times, and names like Clewer
and Ridware must represent the settlements of smaller groups. Of particular
interest, because they are to be associated with the early phases of the Anglo-Saxon
settlement, are the names formed with the suffix -ingas (‘people of’,
‘dwellers at’) like Hastings, Reading, and Spalding, all of them originally
denoting family or tribal groups, later their settlements.
Sussex (the county). Suth Seaxe late 9th cent. Sudsexe
1086 (DB). ‘(Territory of) the South Saxons’. Old English sB;th
+ Seaxe.
Norfolk (the county). Nordfolc 1086 (DB).
‘(Territory of) the northern people (of the East Angles)’. Old English north
+ folc.
Hitchin Hertfordshire. Hiccam c.945, Hiz
1086 (DB). ‘(Place in the territory of) the tribe called Hicce’.
Old tribal name (possibly derived from a Celtic river-name meaning ‘dry’).
Ridware, Hamstall & Pipe Staffordshire. Rideware 1004, 1086
(DB), Hamstal Ridewar 1242, Pipe Ridware 14th cent. Probably ‘(settlement
of) the dwellers at the ford’. Celtic rïd + Old English -ware.
Distinguishing affixes are from Old English hām-stall ‘homestead’
and from the Pipe family, holders of the manor in the 13th cent.
Spalding Lincolnshire. Spallinge 1086 (Domesday Book), Spaldingis
c.1115. ‘(Settlement of’ the dwellers in Spald’. Old district name
(possibly from Old English spald ‘ditch or trench’) + -ingas.
Habitative Names
Topographic Names
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