Normanton on Soar, in the Rushcliffe Wapentake of Nottinghamshire, takes its name from the Old English ethnonym Norðman ‘Northman, Norwegian’ and the Old English element tun ‘farm, settlement’. There are several places of this name, predominantly in the East Midlands: five in Nottinghamshire, one each in Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Rutland, and one in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The affix Soar refers to the location of this Normanton on the River Soar.

Traditionally, the place-name has been interpreted as referring to a settlement of Norwegians (in an area where most of the Scandinavian settlers were Danes). However, the exact implications of such a name are not yet fully understood and are the subject of ongoing work by Dr Jayne Carroll of the Institute for Name-Studies, University of Nottingham.