Viking Names
Saxby All Saints
Saxby All Saints, in the Yarborough Wapentake of Lincolnshire, probably takes its name from the Old Norse and Old Danish male personal name Saksi and the Old Norse element by ‘farmstead, village’. This personal name is very common throughout Lincolnshire and Norfolk. Alternatively, the first element of the place-name could be a Scandinavian gen. pl. form of an ethnonym: Old English S(e)axe, Old Norse Saksar ‘Saxons’. Thus the place-name would mean ‘Saxons’ farm/settlement’. 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. All Saints was affixed at a later date from the dedication of the church.
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Viking Names
Clipstone
Clipstone, in the Bassetlaw Wapentake of Nottinghamshire, is a hybrid name. The first element is the Old Norse male personal name Klyppr as in Clipston, Northamptonshire, and Clipston on the Wolds, Nottinghamshire. It is on record as Clip, the name of a tenth-century moneyer. The second element is Olclid English tun ‘ enclosure; a farmstead; a village; an estate’ and it is thus another hybrid name.
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Viking Names
Fosdyke
Fosdyke, in the Kirton Wapentake of Lincolnshire, comes from the Old Norse male personal name Fótr and Old Norse element dík ‘a ditch, a water-channel’. The same personal name occurs in other place-names in Lincolnshire: Foston and Fotherby as well as possibly in Foston, Derbyshire.
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Viking Names
Southorpe
Southorpe, in the Corringham Wapentake of Lincolnshire, is recorded in Domesday Book as a simplex name from Old Norse þorp ‘a secondary settlement, a dependent outlying farmstead or hamlet’. The prefix was added later to distinguish it from Northorpe.
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Viking Names
Walesby
Walesby, in the Bassetlaw Wapentake of Nottinghamshire, comes from the Old Norse male personal name and nickname Valr which denotes ‘hawk’ and the Old Norse element by ‘a farmstead, a village’.
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Viking Names
Fulbeck
Fulbeck, in the Loveden Wapentake of Lincolnshire, is an Anglo-Scandinavian hybrid formed from Old English fūl ‘foul, dirty’ and Old Norse bekkr ‘stream, a beck’, which likely replaced Old English broc, ‘brook’ based on earlier forms of the place-name.
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Viking Names
Bretby
The first element of Bretby, in the Repton and Gresley Hundred of Derbyshire, comes from either the Old Norse ethnonym Bretar ‘Britons’ or its Old English cognate, Brettas. The second element of the place-name is Old Norse bý ‘a farmstead, a village’. Traditionally, the place-name has been interpreted as referring to Britons who accompanied the Scandinavians in their settlements. 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.
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Viking Names
Withcall
Withcall, in the Louth Eske Wapentake of Lincolnshire, is a Scandinavian compound from Old Norse viðr ‘a wood; or a tree, a tree-trunk’ and Old Norse kjǫlr ‘a keel, a ridge (of hills)’, which is topographically appropriate.
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Viking Names
Ingleby
Ingleby, in the Repton and Gresley Hundred of Derbyshire, takes its name from the Old English ethnonym Engle ‘the Angles, later the English’ and Old Norse by ‘a farmstead, a village’. There is also an Ingleby in Lincolnshire (historically Yorkshire). This Ingleby is close to the Viking winter camp at Repton, and the site of a unique Viking Age cremation cemetery. 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.
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Viking Names
Ullesthorpe
The first element of Ullesthorpe, in the Guthlaxton Hundred of Leicestershire, is the Old Norse male personal name Úlfr (Old Danish Ulf), an original byname meaning ‘wolf’. It was a common name throughout the Viking diaspora. The second element is Old Norse þorp ‘a secondary settlement, a dependent outlying farmstead or hamlet’. The township names that line Watling Street and those to its north-east are predominately English in origin; however, Ullesthorpe, Catthorpe, and Bittesby are the exceptions. It is important to note that although Ullesthope has both an Old Norse specific and generic, Bitteby’s first element is Old English and Catthorpe’s is a feudal affix, which indicate only light Scandinavian settlement in the surrounding area. Ullesthorpe and Bittesby were formally a single land unit which Bittesby was later carved out. Ullesthorpe was likely the dependent village of Bittesby, and now has a narrow reach of land to its west which runs to Watling Street.
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Viking Names
Heath
The eatlier name for Heath, in the Scarsdale Hundred of Derbyshire, was Lund from Old Norse lundr ‘grove, small grove’. Heath from Old English hǣð ‘heather; a tract of uncultivated land’ replaced the older name which remains only as a field name.