Viking Names
Aslak
The male name Áslákr is common in Norway in both the Viking Age and later, and also occurs in a few runic inscriptions from Denmark and Sweden. It forms the first element of the Nottinghamshire hybrid place-name Aslockton and is also found in Aslackby in Lincolnshire.
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Viking Names
Great Rowsley
Great Rowsley, in the High Peak Hundred of Derbyshire, comes from either the Old Norse male personal name Hrólfr or the Old English male personal name Hroðwulf. The second element is Old English leah ‘A forest, wood, glade, clearing; (later) a pasture, meadow’, so if the first element is the Old Norse personal name then it is a hybrid place-name. The affix ‘great’ was a later addition to distinguish this Rowsley from Little Rowsley in the Darley Parish of the High Peak Hundred.
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Viking Names
Granby
Granby, in the Bingham Wapentake of Nottinghamshire, comes from the Old Norse male personal name Gráni and the Old Norse element by ‘farmstead, village’. It is of interest that a document from c. 1200 records that there was a Granehou nearby and it is possible that this was the burial-mound (Old Norse haugr) of the same Gráni who gave his name to the village. Unfortunately, no such mound can be identified today.
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Viking Names
Somerby
Somerby, in the Yarborough Wapentake of Lincolnshire, probably comes from the Old Norse male personal name or byname Sumarliði and the Old Norse element by ‘farm, settlement’. The original byname means ‘the summer traveller’ and is recorded six times in Lincolnshire (all in Lindsey) in the Domesday Book. The spellings in Domesday parallel that of the place-name. Probably identical in origin is Somerby in Leicestershire. Alternatively, the name has been suggested to come from the Scandinavian compound sumar-hlíðar ‘summer slopes’, referring to pastures only used in the summers.
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Viking Names
Gonalston
Gonalston, in the Thurgarton Wapentake of Nottinghamshire, comes from the Old Norse male personal name Gunnolfr and the Old English tun ‘farm, settlement’. It is thus a hybrid name, like Toton.
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Viking Names
Alfgeir
Álfgeirr was not a common name in Viking Age Scandinavia, but it is attested in all of the Scandinavian countries and Iceland. The personal name was once found as the first element of the place-name Algarthorpe, Nottinghamshire; however, the village is now deserted. The name is an Old Norse compound formed from Álf-, identical with alfr ‘elf’, which is not particularly popular in Scandinavian names, and –geirr, ‘spear’ which is a common element in Old Norse personal names.
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Viking Names
Maplebeck
Maplebeck, in the Thurgarton Wapentake of Nottinghamshire, is an Anglo-Scandinavian compound formed from Old English mapel ‘a maple tree’ and Old Norse bekkr ‘a stream, a beck’
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Viking Names
Bigby
Bigby, in the Yarborough Wapentake of Lincolnshire, probably comes form the Old Norse male personal name Bekki and the Old Norse element by ‘farm, settlement’.
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Viking Names
Sloothby
Sloothby, in the Calcewath Wapentake of Lincolnshire, is a complicated name. There are multiple possibilities for the first element of the place-name. The second element is the Old Norse element by ‘a farmstead, a village’. One suggestion is that the first element is the Old Norse byname Slóði ‘the lazy one’; however, this name is not found independently in Lincolnshire and is uncommon in Scandinavia. Another alternative is that the first element could be slóði used as a river-name, referring to a slow-moving sluggish stream. Sloothby is in the fens and a stream runs by. Furthermore, the first element could be the Old Norse element slóð ‘a track, trail’, perhaps referring to a track through the fens. Sloothby is a joint parish with Willoughby.
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Viking Names
Keelby
Keelby, in the Yarborough Wapentake of Lincolnshire, is a Old Norse compound coming from kjǫlr ‘a keel, a ridge (of hills)’ and by ‘farmstead, village’. The village is situated on a rising piece of ground between 15 and 20 metre contours (one small patch above 20 metres). This forms a distinct elongated ‘ridge’ running south-east-north-west.
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Viking Names
Sibthorpe
Sibthorpe, in the Newark Wapentake of Nottinghamshire, comes from either the Old English male personal name Sibba or the Old Norse male personal name Sibbi and Old Norse þorp ‘a secondary settlement, a dependent outlying farmstead or hamlet’.