Etymology and origins
What Is Onomastics? The Study of Names
At a glance
Onomastics is the study of names. The word comes from Greek onoma, 'name'. Its two main branches are anthroponymy, the study of personal names, and toponymy, the study of place-names. Scholars work out what a name originally meant mainly from its earliest recorded spellings, read in the light of the history of the languages spoken where the name arose.
- Personal names
- Anthroponymy (also anthroponymics)
- Place-names
- Toponymy (also toponymics or toponomastics)
- Main evidence
- Early spellings in old documents, then language history and local context
- Key reference works
- Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland (2016); the English Place-Name Society survey volumes
Names that show how the method works
| Name | Meaning or origin | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Swansea Old Norse, in Wales | Not swans or sea. A spelling Sweynesse from about 1165 points to Old Norse 'Sveinn's island'. [2] | Recorded |
| Bearpark French, in County Durham | Not bears. Recorded as Beaurepeyre 'beautiful retreat' in 1267, an estate of the Durham monks. [2] | Recorded |
| Enborne Old English, Berkshire | Domesday Book (1086) has Aneborne; the 1220 spelling Enedburn shows it was a 'duck stream'. [2] | Recorded |
| Embleton Old English | Three places, three origins: only the Cumberland one ends in tūn 'farmstead'. The Northumberland one was a hill (dūn), the Durham one a valley (denu). [2] | Recorded |
| Hampton Old English | The several Hamptons have various origins, but none had a p at first. It crept in to ease pronunciation. [2] | Recorded |
| Leatherhead Surrey | Nothing to do with leather or heads. Speakers reshaped an unfamiliar name into familiar words (folk etymology). [1] | Recorded |
| Chelmer River name, Essex | Made up from Chelmsford, whose first part was really the personal name Cēolmǣr (a back-formation). [1] | Recorded |
| Nottingham Old English | Snot-inga-hām, 'the homestead of Snot's people'. [4] | Recorded |
| Beowulf Old English | A two-part (dithematic) name, literally 'bee-wolf'. Compare the one-part name Ælle. [1] | Recorded |
| Lamb English surname | Could come from a pet form of Lambert, a father called Lamb, a lamb-like nickname or a house sign. William le Lamb (1279) and William atte Lamme (1320) point to different origins. [3] | Uncertain |
| Smith English surname | Polygenetic: it arose separately in many places, because every village needed a smith. About 400,000 bearers in the 1881 census. [3] | Recorded |
| Pity Me County Durham and elsewhere | Looks like it needs a clever explanation, but the experts think it means just what it says. [2] | Recorded |
- Recorded Found in historical records.
- Uncertain The origin or meaning is disputed or unproven.
What the word means
Onomastics is the study of names. The word is built from Greek onoma, 'name', and an ending meaning 'to do with'. You'll occasionally see the older word onomatology. A collection of names, often set out like a dictionary, is called an onomasticon.[1]
The field splits into branches by the kind of name being studied. Anthroponymy (or anthroponymics) deals with personal names: first names, surnames, bynames and nicknames. Toponymy (or toponymics) deals with place-names. Smaller groups have their own labels too: a hydronym is the name of a river, lake or other water feature.[1][5]
The terms are not used with perfect consistency. "Toponymy" can mean the study of place-names, but it can also mean the whole stock of names in an area, as in "the toponymy of East Lothian". Some writers prefer "toponymics" for the study itself.[1]
How a name's meaning is traced
The first rule is to start from the earliest spellings. Modern forms are often worn down or misleading, so scholars collect as many old spellings as they can from charters, tax lists, court rolls and surveys. Swansea is the classic case: it has nothing to do with swans or the sea, and a spelling from about 1165 shows it was Old Norse, 'Sveinn's island'.[2]
The earliest spelling is not always the most reliable. Domesday Book (1086) is the richest single source for English place-names, but its scribes sometimes misheard or misread names. Enborne in Berkshire appears there as Aneborne, and only a later spelling, Enedburn in 1220, reveals the original 'duck stream'.[2]
Next, the spellings are matched against what is known about the languages involved: which languages were spoken there and then, and how their sounds changed over time. A modern ending can hide several different words. Of three places in northern England called Embleton, only one really contains Old English tūn, 'farmstead'. The others began as words for a hill and a valley.[2]
Finally, an explanation has to fit the real world: the landscape, the plants and animals, the farming and the people who owned the land. Place-name scholars also ask what feature the name pointed to and why the community chose it, not just which words it contains.[2]
Why names are harder than ordinary words
Once a name is in use, it only has to point at something. It no longer has to make sense, so it can change in ways ordinary words do not. Common endings pull other names towards them, which is why -ton has swallowed several unrelated words. Speakers also reshape names that have become opaque into familiar words. This is called folk etymology, and it explains Leatherhead in Surrey, which has nothing to do with leather or heads.[2][1]
Surnames are even trickier, because they travel with families. A surname may have arisen once, in one family (monogenetic), or many times in many places (polygenetic), as Smith did. Their spelling and pronunciation also vary a great deal. Little words in early records can help: le ('the') suggests a nickname, while atte ('at the') suggests where someone lived or worked. That is how scholars can tell that a William le Lamb of 1279 and a William atte Lamme of 1320 got the same-looking name in different ways.[3]
What onomastics can and cannot tell you
Many names have a clear, well-evidenced origin. Many do not. When the evidence allows more than one explanation, good dictionaries say so, and some names will never be solved. Surname research is limited by how far records go back: even dedicated family historians often get no further than the 16th or 17th century.[2][3]
Most surnames are rare, which makes the job harder still. In the 1881 census over 85% of surnames had fewer than 500 bearers. The specialists who wrote the SNSBI guides describe every surname dictionary as a work in progress.[3]
Be wary of confident explanations that ignore the old spellings. Some guesses found in print and online contradict well-evidenced etymologies. The reverse also happens: a few odd-looking names, such as the several places called Pity Me, are thought to mean exactly what they say.[2]
In Britain, the main homes of this work are the Institute for Name-Studies at the University of Nottingham, which houses the English Place-Name Society, and the Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland. The English Place-Name Society's county survey volumes, published from 1925 onwards, are the standard detailed survey of English place-names.[6][7][3]