Talk:List of United Kingdom county name etymologies

Modern counties

For the non-traditional counties -

• Cleveland - Anglo Saxon - hilly district
• Clwyd - Welsh - from the River Clwyd
• Cumbria - Welsh - territory of the Cymry (Cymry was the Brythonic word to describe Britons, similar to 'Cymru' (Wales))
• Dyfed - Welsh - (District of the) Demetae (Demetae is of unknown origin but describes the pre-Roman settlers of the area
• Greater Manchester - Compound of Brythonic and Latin - Roman town at Mamm (Mamm was the Brythonic name for Manchester and means breast-like hill)
• Gwent - Brythonic - Trading place
• Gwynedd - Welsh - After Cunedda
• Hereford and Worcester - see article for individual meanings of Hereford and Worcester
• Humberside - English - Beside the River Humber
• Merseyside - English - Beside the River Mersey
• Powys - Welsh - Provincial place
• Tyne and Wear - River Tyne and River Wear
• West Midlands - English - Middle lands

So are we going to have an Etymological list of non-traditional counties of the United Kingdom? Note that it would need to also contain unitary authorities. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 20:04, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

'alternative counties' ? :) I know at some point I am going to make a list of Districts with the immediate origins of their nams. e.g. what the Three Rivers (district) are, what the Redbridge is over, etc. Morwen - Talk 20:11, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

How about we move this article to Etymological list of counties of the United Kingdom and put in a passage at the start to explain that it includes traditional and administrative counties as well as unitary authorities? -- Graham ☺ | Talk 20:16, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Have incoproated the above. Are there any others you can think of? -- Graham ☺ | Talk 20:47, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Avon, of course - that just means 'river' in Britonic ;)

And there is Isle of Wight.

I don't think we should list unitaries that aren't generally considered counties. Morwen - Talk 15:17, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I thought you approved of top-level administrative areas being called 'counties'? Owain 09:33, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I think I agree with that. Isle of Wight always used to be part of Hampshire: is it it's own county nowadays? -- Graham ☺ | Talk 16:41, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Isle of Wight has had its own county council since 1890, and got promoted to be a ceremonial county in 1974. Morwen - Talk 16:42, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

OK I'll update it when I get to the I's then... -- Graham ☺ | Talk 16:53, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

York and Kent

These two have been reverted back to their original edit from what Kennth Alan had changed them to. The Canton link from Kent made no sense whatsoever, and the origin of the name is disputed by most scholars anyway. And the York article, under etymology, states: This city was originally named by the Celts after the Yew tree. I have therefore also altered the language for York from Old Norse to Brythonic. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 13:15, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I just don't understand the insistence on left wing ideology. The vikings established York prior to the Norman foundations and this is likely out of the ruins of English buildings; which had previously overtaken the remains of the Romans, which obviously standardised the Celtic word with a latin form. The society that predominated throughout Mediaeval times was a blend of Norman-Viking English. Do you not understand that would mean the original form in Celtic is irrelevant to this article when its meaning has been in disuse for over 1500 years? How many Celts have been living in Yorkshire all these many hundreds of years? Irrelevant as it was to the inhabitants for that long likewise, for it had subsequently been known as boar-wic/vik, under both English and Old Norse. The Normans didn't change it, so why not listen to the facts of the matter before you revert something so blindly? Heh, do you come from Yorkshire, I suppose not?! You have the insistence that Orkos means boar in Old Norse when no such form of the word existed to them meaning boar. As I have clearly pointed out to you, York is derived of the word boar, not Orkos. Understand the difference? Perhaps it means Orca, but I am not sure either, as I haven't studied that etymology. It would make sense with all the whaling that went on up north; there may have been frequent sightings of those killer whales. There is this also: Orcus.

Another thing; I clearly see an etymology between Kent and canton, as this was the first area of entrance to Britain for millenia. I see a real connection to the latinate term for border, section, and I do also see even a connection between what you believe and the county name. Trying to blend the old English term for division, a "hundred"(cent, centurion), does also equal what you think. Centurions would compose the military capacity of a canton. Kenneth Alanson 18:35, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Please note that I didn't revert anything (to revert is to wipe out all your edits, which I did not). Please also note that I am working here from referenced sources. You don't appear to understand that although the Celts lost power in England about 1,500 - 2,000 years ago there are still Celtic place names here and there; the fact that the Celtic power was extinguished in York 1,500 years ago does not mean the place name went with it: the Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings all dominated this country by doing the same thing: by intermingling with the existing population and by allowing the local population to hold on to their identity. The York article agrees with me, as does the Oxford Dictionary of Place Names.

I didn't say, by the way, that there wasn't an obvious link between Kent and Canton, just that the latter link didn't make sense. Any person following the Canton link wondering why it's the origin of the word Kent would be left wondering forever after, as there is no relevant meaning on the Canton disambig page. There either needs to be an explanation for the link between Centurions and borders in a separate article linked from Canton (in which case the Canton link should then be disambiguated to it) or you need to find a shorter way of expressing the link for this article.

As for the Orkos origin of Orkney, I hope the current explanation is satisfactory. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 16:50, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Land of hosts and armies is insufficient for an explanation of Kent. I gave you the obvious words related to Kent. We aren't supposed to use native american forms of translations: "His name is 'Dances With Wolves'". This is the English Wikipedia. The Orkneys part doesn't explain the reason why you have listed two tongues for the definition of the name. That is why you must include the Old Norse name for York, because that is what altered the name, as much as Orkneys was altered by the Norse. You can't leave it as if later peoples didn't settle there and repopulate, redefining the meaning of York. I am insulted because most of my family is of Yorkshire origin, of which all are a blend of English, Viking and Norman. We did not use the Celto-Roman form and did not recognise that in our daily speech. You can't seriously act as if we were all acknowledging that definition you're putting as what we mean. The yew tree may have been common and revered for archery, but the first part of the word Yor- means boar and -k means vik, in Yorkshire dialect. Ever since the Normans came, the form has been standardised. Whatever the OED says is BBC speech, don't mind it much. It's not popular up North where Yorkshire dialect happens to be. We didn't use such "politically correct" forms until the advent of mass media. Linking to another article doesn't do this article any justice either, as you explained with your debate earlier. Kenneth Alanson 17:39, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Land of hosts and armies is insufficient for an explanation of Kent. I gave you the obvious words related to Kent.

And I've told you what you need to do in order to amend it so that it's correct.

The convention that I have used throughout this article is that, for example, the name Orkney is an Old Norse name. However the whole article is about looking at the origins of all the words used, so leaving the explanation for Orkney as "Islands of the Orkos" and then not ofering any further explanation (which is how you left it) will not suffice because the questioner then asks, "well what does the word Orkos mean?" Throughout the article the origin of all the words used is explained in full and the origin for Orkos needs to remain.

With York, indeed Jorvik was an Old Norse name meaning "boar Viking", which is how you left it, but I don't believe that that is enough. I would then want to know why it's called boar Viking, and the explanation is that when the Vikings arrived and heard the old name for York being pronounced by the locals, they thought they heard the Old Norse word for boar, when in fact they were hearing the Celtic word for a yew tree. This is interesting information, and I believe it deserves bandwidth in this article. I'll amend it so that it inclues the compound between the two languages, which is what it is.

I think you're personalising this discussion too much now, and there's just no need for it. I haven't set out to insult you but if you're going to take part in academic discussions and challenges in this manner, then you should expect your viewpoint to be challenged. If this is too much for you to cope with then you shouldn't be editing here at all. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 20:06, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sorry Graham. A certain sysop has been on an autorevert of all my contributions, so I was a little upset that the mere prospect of doing it myself would start an edit war. Please accept my apology. Kenneth Alanson 06:36, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

To Graham. Actually the Norse settlers heard the Old English 'Eoforwic' (meaning 'Boar's Dwelling') not the Romano-British 'Eboracum' or Brythonic 'Eborakon' (Though the English obviously heard the previous name and adapted it to their own language). And the 'Vik' does not mean 'Viking' it generally means 'bay'. The 'Jor' is just a mishearing, though it has been claimed to mean Horse...but that doesn't sit well with me (Hross is Old Norse for Horse, by the way). The Norse version was just a mispronounced 'Eofurwic'...adapted to 'Jorvik' and then to 'York'. Sigurd Dragon Slayer

---

Isle of Wight

The isle of Wight: a place of division? I always thought wight arose from Wihtgar, the first king of the isle of wight? I may be wrong, so nothing has been altered, but can anyone disprove this? 62.64.129.213 01:41, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The source for that was the Oxford English Dictionary of Place Names. It's a fairly stamdard reference, though not by any means infallable. Can you provide a good reference or two for your theory? -- Graham ☺ | Talk 21:25, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"Down = fort"

I was surprised by this as downs are chalk hills, open and largely treeless. Cf. Old English dun and Welsh dwn. Wetman 07:29, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

When doing etymology it is not as helpful looking at how the word is spelled now, more how the word was spelled when it was first written down. The county name was first written down as An Dún, which the Oxford Names Companion (pub. 2002) assures me is Gaelic for The Fort. The fort in this case being Downpatrick, which although 17th century meaning Patrick's Fort (Dún Pádraig) was formerly called Dún Lethglaise (Fort by the stream). -- Graham ☺ | Talk 09:09, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

County names in other languages?

The current English names for the counties are all very well handled, but what about the etymology of the Welsh names for Welsh counties, Scots and Gaelic names for Scottish counties or Ullans and Gaelic names for the Six Counties? I can take a look for the Welsh ones, but wouldn't know where to start in Scotland or Ireland (I couldn't even name all six Counties and know next to nothing about Scotland). Anyone? :o) — OwenBlacker 19:06, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

I think there's scope there to do that in a separate list, either as a separate table or in a separate article. I think it will lead to confusion if the (for example) Welsh names for counties are intermingled with the English names for all the others. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 21:55, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Split the list

Does anyone object to me splitting up the list by which country the counties are in - England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland (if there are any listed here)? I think it would make the list slightly easier to read or to find counties of. (PS: I don't mean seperate articles, just seperate tables) -- Joolz 19:10, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Object - there's too much unnecesary splitting on "home nations" in other articles as it is. What would be useful is a split on traditional counties vs. administrative counties vs. defunct administrative counties. As it currently stands, they are all mixed together giving the impression that they all have equal status. Owain 21:08, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I brought that up above if you look and was told to put them all in together. -- Francs2000 | Talk [[]] 15:42, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Object per reasons above. -- Francs2000 | Talk [[]] 15:43, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It seems that Mais oui! has done his usual trick of unilaterally splitting things up into England/Scotland/Wales without checking for prior disucussions. *sigh* Owain (talk) 11:02, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Two years late, but I have put it back in one list as concluded above. WP practice prefers the one list. Academically it also makes for a more useful comparison. Howard Alexander (talk) 00:16, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Errors

This page seems to contain factual errors, (e.g. Wiltshire is named after Wilton, which is named after the river Wylye). I'll try to correct what I can, but some of the names have disputed origins.--Dumbo1 18:27, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

There are a few of the Scottish shires listed that are disputed, or incorrect, too. I'll try to correct those. Lianachan 01:46, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

See my reply below for where the references came from: I have added that to the new references section on the page itself. -- Francs2000 20:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Scottish Entries

I have revised the entries for Scottish shires. I've tried to add rather than replace - even when some of the suggested toponyms are entirely alien to me, I've left them in place and added other possibilites which are (I believe) more generally accepted. My two main sources for this were Watson's The Celitic Place-names Of Scoland and the 2003 survey of place names carried out for the Scottish Parliament. I will gladly discuss any problems anybody has with any of my edits. Lianachan 18:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

As the original reference was an English one (the Oxford Dictionary of Place Names) replace as much as you need. -- Francs2000 20:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

PS I've added a references section to the botom of the page: please add the full details of the references you've used. -- Francs2000 20:12, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Mixing

Please do not mix the three countries and one province of the UK. This administrative system (defunct in one of the countries) is distinct in each country and the linguistic stories, besides predating the UK mostly by over a millennium, don't make sense grouped. It also may confuse people into thinking that a county system is directly under the UK, when it is not and never has been. It's also harder to edit btw, another important point. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 16:50, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

The consensus reached on this pages is for a single list, in accordance with the usual protocol: you have ignored the section "Split the list" above. This is an etymological list of place-names, not an analysis of administrative systems devised in recent centuries. It is true that the United Kingdom post-dates most of the county names, but then Scotland and England (and the boundary between them) each post date most of the names too; we would be splitting the England entries alone into seven or eight sections on that basis!

It might perhaps be neater to turn the list into a list for the British Isles, but that is another debate.

As I think was said elsewhere, there is no justification for demoting Scottish places to a secondary position beneath England's places.

LG02 (talk) 22:42, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, cut the consensus garbage. Even if you and Howard Alexander different, more editors have reverted this page the mixing than restored it. Secondly, read WP:Consensus and Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. My own reasons for not wanting them mixed are mentioned above. All these "counties" fall under national divisions, and for a variety of topical and practical reasons (see above) it is far better to make use of than ignore these concrete and legal divisions. None of those counties post date the anglo-scottish border, as counties didn't come into existence before that had already been established (in any case, before the modern period counties in Scotland were units of royal demesne grouped by town rather than provinces like in England). As for alphabetical order, no-one has or will take grievance at this, and it nevertheless still has to be used for the counties. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 23:11, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh hello; it's gone back again. It is time for me to abandon any thought of editing this article, if even a wee etymological list turns into politics, which I do not do. (Politics is for Councillors and other such reprobate characters.) I will stick to what I do best; making things work properly.

LG02 (talk) 18:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

"non-diagnostic Celtic"

What does that mean? —Tamfang (talk) 21:35, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Not an Appropriate Forum for Neologisms

Or perhaps I should put it more bluntly: Ancienterritory is not a word. It isn't two words either, due to a 't' deficiency. This sequence of letters appears in this article. It also appears in precisely the same "list of counties of the UK" context in these apparently cloned odd ball nether regions of the Internet:

• http://www.tutorgigpedia.com/Toponymical_list_of_counties_of_the_United_Kingdom_es.html
• http://www.qesign.com/offer.php?x=Etymological_list_of_counties_of_the_United_Kingdom
• http://www.uniblogger.com/en/Toponymical_list_of_counties_of_the_United_Kingdom

My opinion that it isn't a word seems to be well supported by the complete absence of any other appearances on the Internet. It has to go (perhaps like the ancient territories it tries to describe). I didn't just immediately edit or delete it, because it looks like this Talk page needs something on which we all agree. ChrisJBenson (talk) 10:12, 17 June 2013 (UTC)