When it comes to British place names, Anglo-Saxon origins tend to dominate in the south and Scandinavian languages in the North, mixed in with Old British or Celtic terms for natural features such as hills and rivers. Derbyshire still shows the influence of all three factors in the names we find today.
Often towns and villages share common endings such as -tun (settlement), -ham (homestead), -feld (farmland), -by (village), -caester (Roman stronghold), -worthig (enclosure), -dun (hill), -halh (nook of land) – but these usually follow a first element which is much harder to define, especially when a personal name is concerned.
The famous Domesday Book – a land survey commissioned by William the Conqueror and completed in 1086 – shows Derbyshire names which have been modernised but otherwise changed very little in all that time.
To understand where they came from, we went looking in the Oxford Dictionary of British Place Names.
9. Heanor
Written Hainoure in 1086, meaning 'Place at the high ridge’. Photo: Rachel Atkins
10. Bolsover
Written Belesovre in 1086, then Bolesoura by the 12th century. Probably meaning ‘ridge of a man called Boll or *Bull’. Photo: Brian Eyre
11. Eckington
Known as Eccingtune around 1002, then Eckintune by 1086, meaning ‘estate associated with a man called Ecca or Ecci’. Photo: Brian Eyre
12. Shirebrook
Recorded as Scirebroc 1202, meaning ‘Boundary brook’ or ‘bright brook’. Photo: Derbyshire Times