WHAT'S IN A NAME? 47 



I. 

 THE ANGLO-SAXONS. 



The fundamental principle to be borne in mind when studying 

 local names is that in no case are ancient words arbitrary sounds. 

 They are always ancient words or fragments of words, generally 

 conforming to the physical features of the spot. In this article we 

 will almost entirely confine our attention to that class of words. 



England is preeminently the land of hedges and inclosures. On 

 the continent Normandy alone is an exception to the almost total 

 absence of hedgerows. Now the suffixes which occur most fre- 

 quently in Anglo-Saxon names denote an inclosure of some kind, 

 something hedged, walled in or protected — ton, ham, worth, barrow, 

 stoke, stow, fold, garth, park, hay, burgh, bury, brough. If we take 

 these suffixes as test-words, we are at once enabled to discriminate 

 the Anglo-Saxon settlements. 



Ton is the most common termination of English local names, 

 and although it is a true Teutonic word, it only occurs twice or three 

 times in Germany, but on the coast of France it is as common as in 

 England, and is not un frequent in Sweden. The primary meaning 

 of the suffiix ton is to be sought in the Gothic tains, in the old Norse 

 teinn, and the Latin tinetum, brushwood used for hedging. Hence a 

 tun or ton was a place surrounded by a hedge, or rudely fortified by 

 a palisade. Originally it merely meant a single croft, homestead or 

 farm, and it is but later that the ton having become the nucleus of a 

 village grew into a town: Ourton, the village on the bank; Morton, 

 the village on the marsh; Skelton, the seat of the Viking Scyld or 

 Skeld. 



The Anglo-Saxon yard* and the Norse equivalent, garth, con- 

 tain nearly the same idea as ton. Both denote some place guarded 

 or girded around, and come from yerde, a switch or rod ; therefore 

 jardin and garden were plots surrounded by a fence made of young 

 shoots. Stoke and stow were places stockaded, surrounded with 

 stocks or piles. A similar inclosure is denoted by the suffix fold — in 

 Anglo-Saxon falod, which was a stall or place constructed of felled 

 trees, for the protection of cattle or sheep. Worth denotes a place 

 warded, or protected, probably an inclosed homestead for the churls. 

 Haign or hay, in French haie, is a hedge or a place surrounded by a 



hedge. 



. , — - — — . . 



*A yard=a stick of a certain length. 



