90 The Names of Places in Wiltshire. 
of his, the village derived its name. Again, Exston, a tithing in 
the parish of Orcheston St. George, belonged, at the time of 
Domesday, to Osbern Giffard (W. Domesd., p. 117). In the 
thirteenth century it belonged to one of his descendants, Elias. 
Giffard (Test. de Nev., 142). The form in which the name was then 
spelt, H/ys-ton seems to prove that its meaning is the town or village 
of Elias (Giffard). 
58. Drawing conclusions from analogy, I have little doubt that 
many names, which now puzzle us, contain in them abbreviated and 
often corrupt forms of the names of some ancient owner. Certainly 
the lists that we have among the subscriptions to the Anglo-Saxon 
charters, as well as that of Frisian names which Wassenberg has 
compiled, seem to throw much light on this subject, though we 
cannot directly connect many of the personal names with those of 
the places which they nevertheless seem to interpret. Thus we find 
the name of Huntar, an abbot, appended to a Saxon charter of the 
date of 8541: is it unlikely that one so called gave the name to 
Huwn.avin-Tone (= Hunlaf’s town) ?—certainly WooLavineTon, in 
in Sussex, was originally Wulflafing-tin (= the tun, or village of 
Wulflaf.? So too with what is now called Rotestone : in Domesday 
it is accounted for under WINTERBURNE (W. Domesd., p. 41), and in 
the Nom. Vill. it appears as ABBODESTON, so called from belonging 
to the Abbey of St. Peter’s, Winchester ; but its present designation 
I believe to be derived from some old owner bearing a name which 
in old Frisian appears as Roti, and in Dutch as Roget, and which, 
Wassenberg tells us, is a contraction of Rudolf, or Radulf, (now 
better known in its shortened form of Ralph or Rolf,) of by no 
means infrequent occurrence in Domesday Book. A form of the 
name which we meet with in sundry records viz., Roluestone 
(= Rolvestone) certainly confirms this view. 
54. It will have been observed that some of our illustrations have - 
been from instances in which a personal name occurs in connection 
1Cod. Dipl. 270. We meet with Hinldéfing-ham in a charter from Cod. 
Winton, (C.D. 1231,) but I do not know where the place so designated may be ; 
it does not seem to be in Wilts. 
? Saxons in England, i., 60, 

