Viking Names
Grim
The Old Norse male name Grímr is common across the Scandinavian world, including the Viking diaspora. It is very common in English place-names, though some of these might rather represent an Old English mythological name associated with Woden, and there are other possibilities. For this reason, not all the hybrid names traditionally referred to as ‘Grimston hybrids’ necessarily have an Old Norse element and it is better to refer to them as Toton-hybrids. However, where the name is compounded with an Old Norse element such as -by (as in Grimsby), it is likely that it represents the Old Norse personal name. In Old Norse, Grímr is related to the word gríma ‘mask’ and mythological texts relate that is one of the god Óðinn’s by-names, deriving from his penchant for travelling about in disguise. It is also a common element in compound personal names, such as Þorgrímr. The father of the eponymous hero of Egils saga was called Skalla-Grímr ‘Bald-Grim’.
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Viking Names
Ravenstone
Ravenstone, in the West Goscote Hundred of Leicestershire, is a hybrid name from the common Old Norse male personal name Hrafn combined with Old English tun ‘farm, settlement’. It has been suggested that the first element might be the Old English male personal name Hræfn, but it is unlikely. Ravenstone was originally part of the Repton and Gresley Hundred in Derbyshire and was transferred to Leicestershire in 1884 as a joint parish with Snibstone.
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Viking Names
Swithland
Swithland, in the West Goscote Hundred of Leicestershire, comes from Old Norse sviðinn ‘land cleared by burning’ and Old Norse lundr ‘a small wood’. Thus the place-name has the meaning of ‘the wood next to or containing land cleared by burning’.
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Viking Names
Eastwood
Eastwood, in the Broxtow Wapentake of Nottinghamshire, is a hybrid name formed from Old English east ‘east’ and Old Norse þveit ‘a clearing, a meadow, a paddock’. No form of the name has been found going back to Old Norse austr ‘east’.
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Viking Names
Lound
Lound, in the Bassetlaw Wapentake of Nottinghamshire, comes from the Old Norse element lundr ‘grove, wood’. This origin is celebrated on the village sign, and there is also a Grove Farm in the village.
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Viking Names
Nether Langwith
Nether Langwith, in the Bassetlaw Wapentake of Nottinghamshire, comes from Old Norse langr ‘long, tall’ and Old Norse vað ‘a ford’. The affix Nether ‘lower downstream’ distinguishes Nether Langwith from Upper Langwith, Derbyshire, further up the river Poulter.
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Viking Names
Snitterby
Snitterby, in the Aslacoe Wapentake of Lincolnshire, is an Anglo-Scandinavian hybrid from the Old English unrecorded male personal name Snytra and Old Norse by ‘a farmstead, a village’. It is suggested that the personal name comes from Old English snotor, snytre ‘wise’. The same personal name has been attributed also to Snetterton, Norfolk.
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Viking Names
Barnoldby le Beck
Barnoldby le Beck, in the Haverstoe Wapentake of Lincolnshire, is a difficult name. The first element is likely from the Old Norse male personal name Bjǫrnúlfr, rather than the cognate Old English male personal name Beornwulf, especially taking into consideration the heavy Scandinavian influence in Lincolnshire. The second element is Old Norse by ‘a farmstead, a village’. The earliest reference to the Beck, from Old Norse bekkr ‘a stream, a beck’, is Barnoldby upon Becke 1662 Terrier.
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Viking Names
Askham
Askham, in the Bassetlaw Wapentake of Nottinghamshire, probably goes back to an original Old English æschām ‘ash tree farm,’ but the Old Norse cognate askr was substituted at an early date.
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Viking Names
Tealby
Tealby, in the Walshcroft Wapentake of Lincolnshire, is a very difficult name. To explain the earliest recorded forms Tavelesbi and Tauelesbi in Domesday Book, it has been suggested that the first element contains the East Germanic group-name Taifali, Old English Taflas /Taeflas, detachments of whom are recorded as early as the fifth century. Possibly, this group retained their separate identity for some time in the post-Roman period. Thus, Tealby would originally have been a simplex form of the group-names Taflas /Taeflas, although simplex group-names are rare in English place-names. The second element Old Norse bý ‘a farmstead, a village’ was likely added to the simplex form after Scandinavian occupation of the area.
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Viking Names
Car Colston
The first element of Colston, in the Bingham Wapentake of Nottinghamshire, is probably the Old Norse male personal name Kolr combined with the Old English element tun ‘an enclosure; a farmstead; a village; an estate’. Thus it is an Anglo-Scandinavian hybrid name. The later prefix Car was added to distinguish this from Colston Bassett. Early spellings suggest that this developed from Old Norse kirkja, ‘church’, in its Middle English form kirk(e). Later this was undoubtedly confused with the word carr (Middle English ker), ‘marshland’, common in Nottinghamshire place-names.