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Difino
| • | The study of place names is called toponymy; for a more detailed examination of this subject in relation to British place names please refer to British toponymy.
This list gives a number of common generic forms found in British place names. It is not uncommon to find a number of them in combinative compounds. An interesting example of place naming is Torpenhow (pronounced "tra-PEN-ner") Hill, in Cumbria; the name seems to have grown by waves of new inhabitants each taking over the name given by the previous occupants, and adding to it: the three syllables, tor, pen, how, each mean 'hill' in a different language.
Factors like changes in spelling over the years, shifts of meaning, and other ambiguities may further complicate the issue. For example, in places where the Danelaw prevailed and where there is uncertainty over the origin of a place name, it is commonsense to prefer the Old Norse meaning to the Old English one; often, however, they are the same. Taking, for instance, Askrigg in Yorkshire, 'a place where ash trees grew': while the first element is indubitably the Norse asc (pronounced "ask"), Danelaw ask- can easily well represent a "Norsification" of the Old English form æsc (pronounced "ash"). Both asc and æsc, in any case, mean 'ash' (tree).
Sometimes, however, it was a case of incomers changing a name to match their own pronunciation habits without reference to the original meaning. Thus Skipton, Yorkshire, had it not been for settlement of the area by Norse speakers, would have come down to us as "Shipton" (Old English scip(e)tun - "sheep farm"). The Old Norse word for 'sheep' was quite different (it produced the name Faroes - the "sheep islands"), so the new settlers were not translating the name, but simply reflecting the way the English "sh-" sound regularly corresponded to Norse "sk-" in words which were cognate (as we already saw with asc and æsc).
The terms "Old English" and "Anglo-Saxon" are fundamentally equivalent in meaning and represent the hybrid West Germanic language in use between the Roman abandonment of Britain and up to about 100 years after
Source: [wikipedia: list of generic forms in british place names]
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