English Place Names Quiz Challenge - How Much Do You Know? | Etymology

Answer: Farmstead or village.

It usually comes from the old Norse and often follows a personal name. There are exceptions such as Sutterby in Lincolnshire which comes from shoe makers and both Hunmanby (Yorkshire) and Hunsonby (Cumbria) which were inhabited by dog keepers or Ferrensby (Yorkshire) inhabited by people from the Faroe islands.
It is usually found in danelaw - the north east of England which was occupied by the Vikings. Ingleby, for example, means village of the English and comes from an area particularly heavily settled by Vikings.

Sometimes it is shortened from the old English -byrig or fortified place.

Answer: City, Roman town or old fortification

It also takes the form chester or cester. The name comes from the Latin castrum or camp via the old English. Often they were old Roman settlements and sometimes the name includes the Roman name. For instance Dorchester comes from an abbreviated form of Durnovaria. Manchester was originally Mamucium, perhaps meaning place on the breast shaped hills!

Answer: Either valley or pasture - particularly a swine pasture.

Dean comes from one of two old English words - either denu meaning valley or denn meaning pasture.
The meaning "pasture" is most frequently found in Kent and Sussex.
There are numerous other elements meaning valley such as comb, dale or slade.
Many place names include personal names. They were mostly men but Buckden (Huntingdonshire) was named after a lady called Bucge.

Answer: Hill

It comes from the old English dun. In Scotland dun means fort.
In south east England there are two well known ranges of chalk hills, the North and South Downs.
Neasden (Middlesex) means nose shaped hill, Clandon (Surry) means clean hill (possibly it was weed free) and Shenington (Oxfordshire) means beautiful hill.

Answer: Village, manor, homestead, enclosure or water meadow.

The meaning of village, manor, homestead comes from "ham" and the meaning of enclosure or water meadow from "hamm" or "homm" - both old English. The "a" in ham is pronounced as in father and hamm as in man. As a prefix it can mean winding as in Hamble (Hampshire) or the eight variants of Hambledon or Humbledon which mean literally maimed or mutilated hill - it is thought that it actually means bare or flat topped.

Answer: One of three things - a meadow or pasture, a river or somewhere associated with a clan.

The meaning of somewhere associated with a clan (from the old English -ingas) is the most common; for example, Nottingham comes from homestead of Snots people (the S was lost by the early 12th century). Sometimes the name can be misleading for example Galmington (Somerset) seems to mean farm of Galm's people but it actually means farm of the people who paid rent in cash
There are only about five names with the old English name of -ing for river such as Leeming in Yorkshire (which might be gleaming river). The rare meaning of meadow or pasture comes from the old Norse eng.

Answer: A place, particularly a holy place or place of assembly.

It comes from the old English stoc. Other forms of it are stough and stock. It originally meant just place but there are also variant meanings included 'dairy farm', 'secondary or dependent place or farm', 'summer pasture', 'crossing place', 'meeting place' and 'place of worship'. The most common meaning is 'religious place'.
Stead and stow can have the same meaning.

Answer: Hill, mound, tumulus or wood.

The meaning hill, mound or tumulus comes from the old English hlaw which also gives the alternate form -ley. The meaning wood comes from the old English leah so you need to know the original form of the name to decide what it really means.
Taplow (Buckinghamshire) is Taeppa's burial mound which produced several artifacts now in the British museum. His burial was the richest found in Britain until Sutton Hoo but his name is only known from Taplow. He was possibly king of a state that included the modern county of Surrey (which means south administrative unit) and the disappeared Norrey on the other side of the Thames. It is also possible he was related to Raedwald who was buried at Sutton Hoo.
Another name ending in low meaning hill or tumulus is the apparently contradictory Highlow.

Answer: Village, manor, homestead enclosure or farmstead.

It seems to have originally meant farmstead, then hamlet or village and eventually manor. Barton means either a farm that grows barley or an outlying farm often associated with a monastery. JRR Tolkien seems to have made a philological joke when he invented the village of Oat Barton. Some names ending in ton include four places called Sapperton which means farm of the soap makers (soap making is not something you think of as being common in the early times when places got their names) and the book 'English place names' lists eleven places named after women - three of them called Cengifu.

Other elements also have a few women's names associated with them but ton seems to have an unusually high proportion of female names.

Answer: Enclosure or homestead

It seems to have originally meant just enclosure but quite early on came to mean homestead. To be confusing, the old Norse vath or wath meaning ford can also change into worth.
There are many elements that mean enclosure such as worthy, wardine, ham, haugh, hay, lan, lock and ton.
Names can be misleading; for instance, Greatworth has nothing to do with size but means homestead on gravelly soil and Paddlesworth has nothing to do with paddling but comes from the personal name Paedel.