Barkby, in the East Goscote Hundred of Leicestershire, is a Scandinavian compound from the Old Norse male personal name Bark, a reflex of either Bǫrkr (genitive Barkar) or Barki, and by ‘a farmstead, a village’. A late form of the name, Mikeberkby, is prefixed by the Old Norse element mikill ‘great’ to distinguish it from its neighbouring daughter settlement Barkby Thorpe.
