SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON SCANDINAVIAN
PERSONAL NAMES IN ENGLISH PLACE-NAMES*
By GILLIAK FELLOWS JENSEN
AN examination of the place-name material from the
. areas of Scandinavian settlement in England, collected
and excerpted from printed sources at Copenhagen
University's Institute for Place-Name Research, has
revealed many facts which can help to throw light on
Danish and Norwegian nomenclature in the Viking
Period. Elucidation of problems concerning the personal
names in place-names can often be found in other early
English records and it is greatly to be regretted that no
comprehensive list of the Scandinavian personal names
found in English sources up to, say, the middle of the
thirteenth century has yet been assembled and published.
The value of such a list would lie in its very pretension to
completeness and, within the limited scope of this article
and with the material at present at my disposal, it would
be impossible to give a fair sample. I wish only to
comment on a few aspects of the place-name material
which demonstrate the important contribution that the
study of personal names can make to our knowledge of
the nomenclature of the Vikings who invaded and settled
in England and that of their descendants.
• Abbreviations used in this article:
County abbreviations are those used by the English Place-Name Society.
Bower = 1. M. Bower, The Place-Names of Lindsey, unpublished Ph.D. thesis,
London University, May I940.
BrNGG = J. Brendum-Nielsen, Gammeldansk Grammatik I, end ed., Ig50.
DaGP = Danmarks Gamle Personnaune, I936-.
DEPN = E. Ekwall, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names,
ath ed., Ig60.
Feilitzen = O. Feilitzen, The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday
Book, I937.
Lind = E. H. Lind, Norsk-Tslandska Dopnamn, Ig05-I5.
LRS = publication of The Lincoln Record Society.
Payling = L. w. H. Payling, The Place-Names of the Parts of Holland,
unpublished Ph.D. thesis, London University, June I940.
PNCu = The Place-Names of Cumberland, ed. Cameron, EPNS XX-XXII,
J950-52.
PXNt = The Place-Names of Nottinghamshire, ed. Gover, Mawer and Stenton,
EPNS XVII, Ig40.