Languages in the Place-Names of Britain and Ireland

The place-names of Britain and Ireland are outstanding for their variety, and this is partly because they have been formed using a wide range of languages, belonging chiefly to the Celtic, Germanic and Romance branches of the Indo-European family. Although there is doubt and debate about the exact scale and nature of the various migrations and cultural influences, there is no doubt that the name stock bears witness to many languages, especially spoken but also written. The principal ones involved are presented as a table here, in approximate chronological order (though there is often contact and overlap between languages) and brief discussions of them follow, ordered by language groupings and with (very) selective examples. The locations of places other than major rivers, major cities and county towns are given using the pre-1974/5 county names of England, Scotland and Wales, and the traditional counties of Ireland.

ENGLAND	SCOTLAND	WALES	IRELAND
Old European	Old European	Old European	Old European
Brittonic	Northern Brittonic	Brittonic	Gaelic
(Latin)	Pictish	Welsh	Irish
Old English	Gaelic	English	English
Old Norse	Old English
(Old French)	Old Norse
Middle & Modern English	Scots
	Scottish Standard English

Old European

The earliest stratum of place-names in Britain whose linguistic affiliation is identifiable are those termed ‘Old European’ (German alteuropäisch). ‘Old European’ origins are postulated for names, above all river-names, which recur widely within the Indo-European world and/or which cannot easily be explained as Celtic or Germanic but do fit known Indo-European structures or vocabulary. There is naturally a good deal of uncertainty about this ancient stratum.

River-names widely considered ‘Old European’ include: Adder in Blackadder, Whiteadder, SW Scotland, cf. Oder (Poland/Germany); Allan Water (Perthshire), Ellen (Cumberland) and similar names cf. Alauna, the name of Roman sites in Britain and the Continent; Don (Yorkshire West Riding, Lancashire, Durham), cf. rivers Danube and Don (Russia) and Old Persian dānu ‘river’; Wear (Durham), Wyre (Lancashire), cf. Weser (Germany).

Celtic languages

Brittonic

The term Brittonic, or sometimes Brythonic, is applied to a family of Celtic languages spoken in Britain and, by migration from there in about the fifth or sixth century, in Brittany. It includes Welsh, Cornish, Breton and (at least to c. 1000 AD) Cumbric or Northern Brittonic and probably Pictish. Within England, the distribution of Brittonic place-names (especially river-names), together with the evidence of certain linguistic changes, suggests that Brittonic survived longer in western and northern regions than further south and east. Brittonic languages belong to the so-called P-Celtic branch of Celtic, in distinction from the Q-Celtic (Gaelic or Goidelic), with name elements such as pen(n) ‘head, end’ where Gaelic has ceann/kin. The early history of Brittonic is often uncertain, given the limited nature of the evidence, but the following periods and the terms applied to them are widely accepted.

British, late BC era to c. 600 AD: The period beginning when P-Celtic had diverged from Q-Celtic. Ancient syllable structures were intact at first but radical linguistic change, including loss of final syllables, took place in the later centuries. During this period British was in use over most of the island of Britain.

Neo-Brittonic or Common Neo-Brittonic, c. 600 to c. 900: a much changed language (hence ‘Neo-‘), though as yet with little or no discernible differentiation into Welsh, Cornish and Breton.

Old Welsh, Old Cornish and Old Breton, c. 900 to c. 1100

Middle Welsh, Middle Cornish and Middle Breton, c. 1100 to c. 1500 (Welsh) or c. 1600 (Cornish and Breton)

Examples of Brittonic names: Bodmin and Penzance (Cornwall), Carlisle and Penrith (Cumberland), Dover (Kent), York; major river-names including Avon, Exe and Trent.

Several Brittonic names survive in combination with an Old English element in the names of major towns and cities such as Manchester and the county towns Dorchester, Leicester and Worcester.

Cornish

The Brittonic language spoken in Cornwall until the eighteenth century, and the language of most of the major names of Cornwall, though English and English naming spread into East Cornwall in the Anglo-Saxon period and from there gradually westwards.

Examples: Liskeard, Lizard, Looe, Penzance

Northern Brittonic or Cumbric

A Brittonic variety or group of varieties is in evidence in place-names of the’Old North’ –Brittonic-speaking parts of Northern England (especially Cumbria until about the eleventh century), and southern Scotland (notably the kingdom of Strathclyde during its heyday, the late ninth to mid eleventh century). This was termed ‘Cumbric’ in twentieth-century studies, but the use of the term varies and ‘Northern Brittonic’ is generally preferred in recent scholarship.

Examples: Glasgow, Govan, Lanark (all in Lanarkshire), Melrose (Roxburghshire); Blindcrake, Cumrew, Penrith (all in Cumberland)

Pictish

Although evidence is in short supply, Pictish appears to be a Brittonic variety spoken in eastern and northern Scotland from Fife northwards (and perhaps further west before the Viking Age). Pictish appears to have died out by the eleventh century, by which point areas where Pictish had been spoken had become Gaelic- or Norse-speaking.

Examples: Aberdeen; Aberdour and Cupar (Fife); Perth and the Pit- in names such as Pitcairn and Pitlochry (Perthshire).

Welsh

The best-surviving variety of the Brittonic languages and the language of most of the place-names of Wales (as well as some in bordering counties of England), including relatively recent ones such as Pontypridd (first recorded c. 1700).

Examples: Aberystwyth (Cardiganshire), Abertawe (= Swansea), Dolgellau (Merionethshire)

Gaelic or Goidelic (including Irish)

The form of Celtic spoken, and forming place-names, in Ireland, the Isle of Man, much of mainland Scotland and the Hebrides. It is also known as Q-Celtic, in distinction from the P-Celtic variety Brittonic or Brythonic.

Gaelic was brought to western Scotland in about the fifth century by migrants from Ireland, and spread from there during the Middle Ages. The varieties of Gaelic spoken in Ireland and accounting for most of the major names there are also termed (Old, Middle or Modern) Irish and the varieties spoken in Scotland are termed Scottish Gaelic or simply Gaelic. The variety spoken on the Isle of Man is known as Manx. Due to common linguistic ancestry, the roots of early Gaelic place-names in Scotland are sometimes designated ‘Old Irish’. Gaelic names have widely been anglicised, turning, for instance, baile ‘homestead, township’ into bally/balli and srath ‘valley, riverside land’ into strath in Irish and Scottish place-names.

Examples in Scotland: Auchencairn (Dumfriesshire and Kirkcudbrightshire), Benbrack (Dumfriesshire), Kilbride (several);

In Ireland: Belfast/Béal Feirste, Benbrack/Beann Breac (Cavan), Dublin (Dubh Linn, though the Irish name currently used is Baile Átha Cliath), Kildare/Cill Dara;

In Isle of Man: Douglas; in England: Ravenglass (Cumberland).

Germanic Languages

English

Old English

A West Germanic language spoken between the fifth century and c. 1100 in what became England and Scotland as far as Galloway in the west and the Firth of Forth in the east. Old English had several dialects, most of which are classed as Anglian (N. and E. England, Midlands, S. Scotland) or Saxon (SW and parts of SE England). Anglo-Saxon is an alternative term, though now generally reserved for the speakers and culture rather than the language. The descendants of Old English include Middle English, Modern English and Scots.

Used in a majority of major place-names in England and in several in Lowland Scotland.

Examples in England: Bath and Bristol (Somerset), Birmingham, Bradford (Yorkshire West Riding), Brighton (Sussex), Norwich, Southampton

In Scotland: Birgham (Berwickshire), Whithorn (Wigtownshire).

In Wales, Mostyn and Prestatyn (both Flintshire) are among English-language names already found in Domesday Book, 1086.

Middle English

The form of English current c. 1100–c. 1500, a time of great dialectal variety and of highly eclectic vocabulary, including large numbers of words adopted from Old Norse, Old French and Latin. Names continued to be coined in English after the Norman Conquest of 1066, so if they are only recorded after 1066 it can be uncertain when they were coined. Names containing Old English here-pæð ‘army-road’, for instance, may well be early even if recorded late (e.g. Harepath Farm in Wiltshire, only recorded from c. 1840) since the word is not thought to have survived into the Middle English period. But in other cases, dating may be difficult or impossible, making it difficult to classify names as ‘Old English/Old Norse’ or ‘Middle English’. A further complication is that academic writing about English place-names often follows a convention that English elements are cited in their Old English form, without necessarily implying that the name in question is a pre-Conquest formation.

Certain Middle English names include: Newbiggin(g), Newlands, Newport (all several each), Grange (several in Ireland, cf. Grange-over-Sands in Lancashire), Causey Park (Northumberland).

Modern English

New place-names have continued to be coined in English from c. 1500 to the present: some of them major and reflecting industrial developments, but most secondary and minor names. Since Wales, Scotland and Ireland have all been united with, or politically controlled by, England in various ways and at various times, English-language naming (or naming in Scots, Scottish Standard English, Hiberno-English/Irish English or Welsh English) is also greatly in evidence there, as is the anglicisation of Celtic names.

Examples: Ironbridge (Somerset), Newquay (Cornwall); Cookstown and Newtown Stewart (Tyrone, named in the seventeenth century); the eighteenth-century Fort William and Fort Augustus (Inverness-shire), and the nineteenth-century industrial settlements of Dukestown (Monmouthshire) and Morganstown (Glamorgan).

Scots and Scottish Standard English

Scots is the form of English descended from Old English and spoken in the Scottish Lowlands (known as Older Scots to c. 1700), and in Northern Ireland (where it is known as Ulster Scots). Scots is found especially in names of topographical features and recent settlements and contains vocabulary not generally used in England. Since the seventeenth century, Scottish Standard English (SSE) has displaced Scots in some social contexts, and place-names of this period may be regarded as SSE unless they contain the more exclusively Scots vocabulary or pronunciations.

Examples of Scots: Corbie Knowe (several), Kittlegairy Burn (Peeblesshire)

Ulster Scots: Sandyknowes and White Brae (Antrim)

Scottish Standard English: names with holy as opposed to Scots haly

Old Norse or Old Scandinavian

A North Germanic language spoken by Scandinavians who settled in parts of Britain from the ninth century. It is consequently found in place-names across much of northern and eastern England, and widely in Shetland, Orkney, the Hebrides and SW Scotland. There is also some influence in Ireland and Wales, especially in coastal areas. Old Norwegian and Old Danish, both dialects of Old Norse, differed only slightly, and exact place-name origins can rarely be identified, though Norwegian influence appears stronger in SW Scotland and NW England and Danish in eastern England. Since Old Norse and Old English are cognate languages some names could be attributed to either language, and mutual influence is seen in scandinavianisation or anglicisation of existing names. Particularly where names are not recorded until after the Norman Conquest, it can also be difficult to separate names coined in a living Scandinavian language from those using vocabulary adopted from Old Norse, unless distinctively Scandinavian inflexions survive, as for instance in Harter Fell (examples in Cumberland and Westmorland), where -er is from a Scandinavian genitive ending –ar.

Scandinavian names in England include: Braithwaite (Cumberland), Derby, (North & South) Ferriby (Yorkshire East Riding, Lincolnshire), Grimsby (Lincolnshire), Grisedale (Cumberland, Westmorland), Mungrisdale (Cumberland), Grizedale (Lancashire), Skegness Lincolnshire; in Ireland: Strangford (Down), Waterford, Wicklow; in Scotland: Eriskay (Inverness-shire), Lerwick (Shetland) and Shetland itself; in Wales: Fishguard (Pembrokeshire), Swansea.

Some names in NW England combine Norse and Gaelic linguistic features and can be termed ‘Hiberno-Norse’ or ‘Norse-Gaelic’. They bear witness to close contact between speakers which may have continued into the post-Conquest period. It is also possible that some Goidelic names in Cumbria reflect the expansion of Scots Gaelic into the area.

Examples: Setmurthy (Cumberland), Torver (Lancashire)

Romance Languages

Latin

Introduced by the Romans in the first century AD and used, at least in towns, garrisons and amongst the élite until the early fifth century – and possibly more widely in SE England. However, the names of Roman towns and forts are mainly Brittonic, albeit latinised, and there are few Latin place-names either in Roman-period sources or in surviving place-names.

An example is: Speen (Berkshire; Spinis, ?3rd century) ‘at the thorn-trees’, from Latin spīna ‘thorn’.

A number of Latin words were adopted at various times and by various routes into Old English and contribute significantly to place-names.

Examples include: OE cæster ‘Roman town’ < Latin castrum, as in Manchester, Lancaster, Leicester etc.; OE strǣt ‘street’ < Latin strāta as in Stratford, Stratton, Stretton (several)

Medieval Latin

Latin names (or forms of names) were also formed or used in later centuries, often translating the more transparent vernacular place-names. These were usually restricted to documentary use, but some became accepted, with modification, as the standard form.

A rare example is: Pontefract (Yorkshire West Riding)

Similarly, Latin was commonly used in affixes (words used to distinguish places with the same name), e.g. magna ‘great’, parva ‘little’, and some of these remain in use.

Examples include: Ashby Magna & Parva (Leicestershire), Toller Porcorum (‘of the pigs’, Dorset)

(Old) French

Introduced as a prestige language (originally in an Anglo-Norman variety) following the Battle of Hastings (1066) and the establishment of Norman control, first in England and Wales and then in parts of Scotland and Ireland. French names were often given to newly-founded monasteries or great estates, and often employed the adjective beau/bel ‘beautiful’ or the noun mont ‘hill, mount’. In some names, the qualifying element follows the generic, following the word-order common in French.

Classic examples include: Beaulieu/Bewly/Bewdley, Belvoir (several); Montacute (Somerset)

Several French place-names are transferred from France.

Examples include: Montgomery; Richmond (Yorkshire North Riding, further transferred to Surrey)

French family names were frequently deployed as affixes to pre-existing names.

Typical examples are: Melton Mowbray (Leicestershire), Milton Keynes and Stoke Mandeville (Berkshire)

Several French adoptions into Middle English vocabulary became extremely productive in place-names.

Examples include: causey, close, forest, grange, lodge, park