Gaddesby, in the East Goscote Hundred of Leicestershire, is a Scandinavian compound from the Old Norse male personal name Gaddr, which is an original byname from Old Norse gaddr ‘a goad, a spur’, and Old Norse element by ‘a farmstead, a village’. Alternatively it has been suggested that the first element is Modern English gaddr transferred topographically to the ‘spur of land’ on which the settlement is located. However, it is difficult to conceive the escarpment in which the village sits on as a hill-spur.
