England Place Name Meanings - International Institute

A Miscellany Of Names
These further categories will serve to remind us that names of places, people and things are all inter-related, each one coming into use through some kind of historical association.

Cockney Rhyming Slang
Newcomers have a terrible time with the constantly evolving rhyming slang used by cockneys and others in the east end of London. This dialect:


 * Has a large number of different words, such as kip for sleep, and wotcher luv as a greeting. Some are derived from Yiddish (gelt for money) and Romany (clobber for clothes).


 * Substitutes ordinary nouns with a rhyming phrase which is frequently abbreviated to only the non-rhyming first word of the phrase, which is totally confusing! Some of the less vulgar examples:

This is complicated by the pronunciation which:


 * Tends to omit H at the beginning of words and also add them to those starting with a vowel, as in I ‘ope you ‘ad a ‘appy ‘oliday, and Hit is a Hannual Hobligation.


 * Uses glottal stops instead of T, for example butter is pronounced bu!er, thus a bi! o’ be!er bu!er means a bit of better butter.


 * Words like half and Arthur are pronounced ‘arf and Arfer. Thus, I can say I come from Sarf Lunnon (South London).


 * Double F or V replaces TH. In school I remember they tried valiantly to improve our pronunciation by having us recite: Forty thousand thrushes with forty thousand feathers on their throats. Our rendition turned out more along the lines of For!y ffassun’ ffrushes wiv for!y ffassun’ fevvers on their ffroa!s.

There are several tourist-type phrasebooks such as Rhyming Cockney Slang by Jack Jones, who recommends Franklyn’s Dictionary of Rhyming Slang for more depth, and a more detailed and hilarious book by Barltrop and Wolveridge called The Muvver Tongue.

Things Named After People
Some 35,000 people have been immortalized by having their names turned into everyday words, some of which started out as brand names. Some of those which would feature in the lives of our ancestors are described here (Bibby).


 * Albert. The picture of your great grandfather may show him wearing a watch chain with a crossbar that passed through a waistcoat buttonhole. This item was popularized by Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, consort of Queen Victoria, and named after him.


 * Balaclava helmet, is a close-fitting woollen covering for head and shoulders worn especially in cold climates, and firstly by soldiers in the Crimea who endured the Battle of Balaclava in 1854.


 * Bobby, a popular term for a policeman, comes from Robert Peel who was Home Secretary when the Metropolitan Police Act was passed in 1828.


 * Boycott. Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott was an English estate manager who refused to lower the rents of poor Irish tenant farmers, as requested by their Land League (early trade union) in 1880. Labourers and servants refused to work for him, shopkeepers would not serve him, etc. and this treatment became known by his name.


 * Bradshaw, a monthly passenger railway timetable invented by a Manchester printer of this name in 1839.


 * Braille, an alphabet made of raised dots enabling the blind to read words and music by touch, was invented by Louis Braille in France in 1829.


 * Cardigan, a long-sleeved, woollen waistcoat, usually buttoned in front, was invented by Lord Cardigan, the eccentric but brave leader of the tragic Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava in 1854.


 * Derrick comes from the 17th century hangman at Tyburn gallows, Thomas Derrick. He hung hundreds of convicts, was later convicted of rape and condemned to die, but pardoned by the Earl of Essex, who was later hung by Derrick for treason! The original meaning was a gallows but it now refers to any equipment used to hang something.


 * Gladstone bag, a suitcase that opened out into two halves, was one of a series of leather travelling bags named by the makers after famous politicians, William Gladstone serving four times as Prime Minister for Queen Victoria.


 * Gregorian Calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 to replace the Julian calendar.


 * Guillotine, now used for many types of slicing machines, was named after Dr. Guillotin who proposed its use for the swift disposal of aristocrats during the French Revolution.


 * Guy was originally Guy Fawkes who tried to blow up parliament on 5th November 1605. From this there arose the tradition of having firework displays and burning a crudely stuffed dummy, known as the ‘guy,’ on a bonfire. Any bizarrely dressed person was then referred to as a ‘guy, but the term became less derogatory after crossing the Atlantic.


 * Hadrian’s Wall is a 76 miles long wall and ditch across the far north of England from Bowness-on-Solway to Wallsend, built by Emperor Hadrian after AD 112 to control native movement and for surveillance.


 * Hansom cab was patented in 1834 by Joseph Aloysius Hansom, also renowned as an architect. It had two large wheels and a low centre of gravity, thus was far safer than previous small carriages, and was only displaced by the motor cab some 80 years later.


 * Julian Calendar was introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC and replaced by the Gregorian Calendar in 1582, and later in non-Roman Catholic countries.


 * Oliver’s Skull was at one time English slang for a chamber pot, the reference being to Oliver Cromwell (Dunkling 1977).


 * Mac(k)intosh, another word for a raincoat, commemorates the inventor of an early form of rainproof fabric, Charles Mackintosh. It consisted mainly of two layers of India rubber cemented together with naphtha and he patented it in 1823.


 * Malapropism. This means the ludicrous misuse of a word, especially in mistake for one resembling it, as exemplified by the newby family historian who wanted to know how to ‘magnetize’ [magnify] the image on the film reader. It comes from a fictional person, Mrs. Malaprop, in Sheridan’s The Rivals. My Oxford dictionary gives a suitably genealogical example: ‘A nice derangement of epitaphs’ for ‘An arrangement of epithets.’


 * Morris Chair, which had an adjustable back, was first produced by the firm of William Morris, a 19th century English artist, designer, poet and craftsman.


 * Sally Lunn a sweet tea cake sold by a lady of this name in the fashionable resort of Bath at the end of the 18th century. An enterprising baker named Dalmer bought her business, composed a song which his sellers then sang, and retired a rich man.


 * Silhouette a blacked-in outline drawing began in France as a cheap form of portrait before the days of photography. Named by French nobles after a cost-cutting Finance Minister, Etienne de Silhouette, who cut their pensions and privileges.


 * Spoonerism, from the Rev. W.A. Spooner (died 1930) who was rather prone to accidentally transpose the initial letters of words. Some classic examples are ‘He just received a blushing crow’ and ‘For real enjoyment give me a well-boiled icicle.’


 * Vandyke is a name given to a short, pointed beard worn by many of our late 17th century ancestors, also of a type of collar, and a brown colour much used in the paintings of Anthony Van Dyck. He was a Flemish portrait painter who enjoyed the patronage of the Stuart king Charles I.

Things Named after Places
There are a few verbs such as to canter which is derived from the pace of the pilgrims on their way to Canterbury; and a few phrases like Sent to Coventry, and Shipshape and Bristol fashion. Most are nouns and the first stage is when a town is a descriptive term associated with an item:


 * Aran sweater
 * Aylesbury duck
 * Bakewell tart
 * Buff Orpington (chicken)
 * Camberwell Beauty (butterfly)
 * Cambridge blue
 * Cheshire cat
 * Chelsea bun
 * Eccles cakes
 * Epsom salts
 * Eton collar, crop and jacket
 * Hackney cab
 * Hampshire yellow (an apple)
 * Honiton lace
 * Manchester wares (cloth goods)
 * Melton Mowbray pies
 * Norfolk jacket
 * Oxford bags and shoes
 * ussex trug (basket)
 * Yorker (cricketing term)

The second stage is where the item acquires the town’s name as a synonym:


 * Cheddar, Caerphilly and Leicester are cheeses
 * A Derby is a hat
 * Herefords are cattle
 * Greenwich is standard time
 * Kersey is a cloth
 * Jerseys are cows and sweaters
 * Rugby is a sport
 * A Worcester is an apple

There are some special place names with historical meaning including:


 * Bedlam is a shortened form for the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem, in London founded as a priory in 1274 and became the first hospital for lunatics. The modern sense of the word was in use by the 16th century.


 * A Bridewell is a house of correction for prisoners, after an early one called Bride Well in London, formerly a lodging of Henry VIII.


 * In the Clink, meaning ‘in prison,’ comes from the gaol of that name in Southwark, London.


 * The Fleet was a debtors’ prison in the city of London from which disreputable clergymen would conduct clandestine marriages for a fee. The Rules of the Fleet was a limited area outside the Fleet (for ordinary debtors) and King’s Bench (for upper class debtors) prisons in the city of London in which prisoners were allowed to live on certain terms.


 * The Marshalsea was a debtors’ prison in Southwark, London.


 * The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street is the nickname for the Bank of England, situated in Threadneedle St. in the city of London.

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Information in this Wiki page is excerpted from the online course English - Understanding Names in Genealogy offered by The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. To learn more about this course or other courses available from the Institute, see our website. We can be contacted at [mailto:wiki@genealogicalstudies.com wiki@genealogicalstudies.com]

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