Names - Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Norse

Starting another week with the A-Z blogging challenge, and now we're onto the second half of the alphabet.

The names of many Lake District places, mountains, valleys and lakes come from ancient languages.



The oldest probably come from the pre-Roman Celtic language, which is related to Welsh and Cornish, mixed with influences from southern Scotland. This led to words such as stickle (meaning steep place, from the Celtic skikill), and crag (meaning rock, from the Welsh ‘craic’). These words are very common in the Langdale area, with Harrison Stickle, Pike O’Stickle, Gimmer Crag and Loft Crag.

From the Anglo-Saxon times (about 700 – 900 AD) come words like ‘tun’ meaning farmstead or village, and ‘mere’, the word for lake. So we have Coniston (meaning King’s town – not sure who the king was!), and Windermere (Winander’s Lake). Incidentally, although many people refer to Windermere as ‘Lake Windermere’ and Grasmere as 'Lake Grasmere', this is technically wrong, since the ‘mere’ suffix indicates a lake, but this seems to be done to distinguish the lakes from the small towns which have the same name.

A lot of Lake District names are derived from Old Norse. The Norsemen arrived around 925AD, and gradually settled in the area. Maybe it reminded them of their Scandinavian homeland, with its mountains, valleys and lakes.



There are many names which still retain the Norse influence e.g:

Beck – steam  - from bekkr Dale – valley - from dalr
Force – waterfall - from fors
Fell – a large mountain - from fjallr
Ghyll – ravine - from gill
Howe – hill - from haugr
Holme – isalnd - from holmr
Pike – peak - from pic
Side or Seat – shieling/dwelling or mountain pasture - from saetr
Tarn – small lake - from tjorn
Thwaite – forest clearing - from thveit

These words were often linked with the Norse chieftain who established a settlement in the area. For example, the name Hawkshead derives from the Norseman 'Haukr' who had a dwelling or 'saetr' in this place. Its medieval name  was Howksete, which was sometimes spelt as Haaksid - hence the modern name.

I’ve tried to explain some of these names when I’ve used them in earlier posts, but hope this list clarifies any I might not have explained! I must admit the origin of modern place names fascinates me!