1. Terbus

    Terbus Active Member

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    Village Names in England

    Discussion in 'Research' started by Terbus, May 4, 2022.

    Ok, so my protagonists ended up in a village in Staffordshire. Then I hit a wall because I know nothing about small towns in England besides what can be found in your average mystery novel. I did a bit of creative googling and found some helpful information, but none of it had the kind of basic details that make a place seem real. Anyway, the big problem I have meet with is what to call this village. I don't want to use a real place and I'm not great a creating place names either. Dose anyone know of some kind of reference type site or name generation that could help with this? I want the name to suit the location, not just the country.
     
  2. Catriona Grace

    Catriona Grace Mind the thorns Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    My favorite fictional English village name is Tottering on the Edge. I realize that's no help; I'm just sharing.
     
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  3. Mogador

    Mogador Senior Member

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    Its not hard to understand some of the old time English that formed the names of villages. Look at a map of Staffordshire, find a dozen village names you like the sound of, go look them up on a place-name survey website, like the one linked to below, to find what the root words were that made them up and some of the older forms of the same name. Then see how you could make your own village name from those root words, or older Saxon/Norse/Celt/Roman forms of the names, which would fit the setting. For example Hatherleigh:

    https://epns.nottingham.ac.uk/browse/Devon/Hatherleigh/53284f37b47fc4097e001975-Hatherleigh

    AKA Hadreleia, Adrelie, Hatherlegam, Hatherley, Hetherley. Something to do with 'heather' or 'hawthorn', maybe.

    In general place names are reasonably easy to create for England. They relate to a plant or a person or a feature, and often end in something like 'worthy', 'leigh', 'stow', 'bridge' and so on.
     
  4. Mogador

    Mogador Senior Member

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    Or Buggerington Upon Nowhere.
    Or Nempnet Thrubwell.*

    * Real.
     
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  5. Catriona Grace

    Catriona Grace Mind the thorns Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    I looked it up. It's lovely!

    Hmm. Maybe I could write a cozy English mystery and put it in the village of Walking on Aire or Pondering on Eden. Limping in the Fields would be good, too.
     
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  6. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    Yes. I use to use it a lot because it was the only one that gives realistic sounding fictitious place names. Whether I can find it is another question. Hold on...

    That was easier than I thought. Just keep hitting ‘Gemerate’ until you hit on one you like the sound of. Some sound distinctly American, but you’ll find something that jumps out eventually.

    https://www.namegenerator.biz/place-name-generator.php
     
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  7. Naomasa298

    Naomasa298 HP: 10/190 Status: Confused Contributor

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    Then there's Spitle-in-the-Street, and the infamous hills of Little and Great Cockup.
     
  8. Catriona Grace

    Catriona Grace Mind the thorns Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    Despite USGS attempts to clean up location names, residents know that Horse Cock Hill is located in central Wyoming.
     
  9. Terbus

    Terbus Active Member

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    Thank you, everyone! Your responses have been both helpful and amusing, and they have definitely fixed my problem. I don't think I'll be worrying about what to name any of the dozen or so villages and towns that appear in my novels.
     
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  10. Thomas Larmore

    Thomas Larmore Senior Member

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    English villages are so often the setting of stories. Why not find a setting people aren't so used to seeing?
     
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  11. Hammer

    Hammer Moderator Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Two little stories about English place names...

    First little story; I went to visit a friend shortly after he had moved to a new house in deepest the darkest Kent countryside. I passed through a beautiful village on the way; "what was it called?" my friend asked. "I think," I replied, "it was called Lowbridge." Now that was a joke, obviously (I hope obviously...), but there is an element of truth in it, many English place names start life as "things" which become names. I am currently staying in a village called Shepley. Ley, leigh, or lee were Anglo-Saxon words for clearing or field. Shep - sheep; Shepley was literally a field where sheep were kept. The nearest big town is Huddersfield, from 'Odersfelt'. 'Oder' is a Norse person's name and 'felt/feld' a 'field'. A field belonging to Oder. Lowbridge becomes less far-fetched. Brentford in London is where the river Brent was forded. Cambridge, famed for its polytechnical college, was where the river Cam was bridged. Oxford, known for its great university, was where the oxen were driven across the Isis. I'm so going to have a town called Lowbridge...

    Second little story, to wake you up. This one is bittersweet for me. One of my greatest friends died of cancer nearly two years ago. We had lost touch for a couple of years, but made contact again shortly after "Lockdown 1" in England - sadly just a couple of weeks before he passed away; that's the bitter part. The sweet part is a friend of his who I don't know, decided to go on a road-trip in Alexis' memory and to raise money for cancer research - hats off to how he planned his route
     
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  12. Terbus

    Terbus Active Member

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    Because I'd have to completely rewrite the backstory of every single character. When I originally invented the characters, they where all from the UK. Now, some four years later, their stories are interwoven with their time and location to deeply to change without recreating the story.

    Also, there is a formula to mystery novel writing that has yet to stop readers from reading. I don't care how many small towns and villages appeer in what I read, because each brings a new set of characters that make it different from the last book.
     
  13. KiraAnn

    KiraAnn Senior Member

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    I've always been amused by the names in Midsomer Murders. At least 8 out of 10 times it will be "Midsomer" something. ;)
     
  14. JLT

    JLT Contributor Contributor

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    In general, English towns that were founded or renamed by the Danes have a suffix like by from "farmstead," thorp from "hamlet," toft from "plot of land," and gate from "road." So if your mythic town is located within what was called the Danelaw, it might have a name with a similar suffix.
     
  15. Catriona Grace

    Catriona Grace Mind the thorns Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    Because so many people adore stories set in English villages- like me. :D Miss Marple go bragh.
     
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  16. GeoffFromBykerGrove

    GeoffFromBykerGrove Active Member

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    A good way to start is to look at villages in Staffordshire and find patterns. For example, around here we have loads of places ending in -ley or -Heath, as well as places named after the nearest river (Stourbridge, Stourton, Stourport).

    I live just up the road from Staffordshire and have in-laws there. It’s where folk from Wolverhampton retire to or move to when they want to live “in the country”, but Stafford itself can be rough. In fact, this whole area was Staffordshire for a long time, so the kinds of towns and villages you get will depend on the era you’re writing about.

    What’s also great about English towns (as with most places, I would guess) is how the spelling and pronunciation can be different, so borrowing from another town might be useful in writing but check how to say it! I’m thinking about Bicester (bisster), Leominster (lemster) and Shrewsbury (shrowsbree).
     
  17. Catriona Grace

    Catriona Grace Mind the thorns Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    Hamley on Wye.
     
  18. Storysmith

    Storysmith Senior Member

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    A word of warning: in England, villages are never towns. A village might become a town, but then it would not be called a village any more.
     
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  19. SapereAude

    SapereAude Contributor Contributor

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    Do you want mustard on that? :rolleyes:
     
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  20. Catriona Grace

    Catriona Grace Mind the thorns Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    Mustard on Wye is upstream from Hamley.
     
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  21. Jlivy3

    Jlivy3 Active Member

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    Ok, don't want to derail this thread, but I started thinking about the whole town/village thing and the definitions aren't nearly as neat as I remember.
    Here's what I came up with, PLEASE correct any errors, as I'm not from the UK....

    Hamlet- A scattering of houses and farms by the road side, typically in a rural setting. You’d be lucky to find a pub, but probably no church, no central meeting place and no shops and services. Population under 100.

    Village-There’s a church, some kind of central organizational area- a village hall, maybe a village square. Some shops and services, (school, post office, emergency services), but generally a “sleepy” or quiet setting. Most employment may be agricultural or related. Population 100 to 1,000.

    Town- Originally referred to the “market towns”. Now they will have shops, services and a town council and a mayor. More likely to have public libraries and hospitals. May have a college or university. Generally more economically energetic than a village. Some consider a mill, factory or other large-ish employer a requirement for this category. Populations start to vary more here, but typically 1,000 to 10,000. Larger towns could have 10,000 to 100,000 or more residents.

    City- Originally had a cathedral, and therefore a bishop. City status bestowed by the monarch. Now they will have several administration areas and many churches, shops and services and at least some large, corporate businesses. Population usually considered greater than 300,000 but obviously that leaves a gap where bigger towns come in. Seems that towns can be adjacent to or surrounded by expanding cities, but still retain their character and administrative independence.
     
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  22. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    I find the whole village/town thing fascinating. Being an American, we just have towns and cities with the only demarcation being population, but only nominally so. A quick Google says there are 100K towns in the US but cities of only a few hundred. I think in RI 40,000 people is a city and 39,999 is a town. Kind of stupid. There's a bunch of tiny ass towns up in my second home of New Hampshire that should probably be villages but aren't because... things?
     
  23. Catriona Grace

    Catriona Grace Mind the thorns Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    We have Big Towns, Small Towns, and Wide Spots in the Road in Wyoming, but if all these folks from foreign states keep pouring in with their remote jobs and big bank accounts, it's going to spoil it for everyone.
     
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  24. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Sorry. They filled up everything here on the East Coast already and need somewhere to expand. Call it Capital Migration?
     
  25. Mogador

    Mogador Senior Member

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    Whilst a town can be a city and a city a town, colloquially at least. You 'go in to town', meaning the city, or into the centre of the city.

    Now I write it it occurs to me how odd it is that when you live in a provincial city you call the centre of the city 'town'... But naturally if you live in London (a lower case city) you might say you are going in to 'town', referring to several different places near the centre, which are technically boroughs; but not to The City (upper case) which is de jur and de facto a city within a city and not a borough; and not to Westminster, which is de jur a city within a city and the most powerful place in the country, but also de jur and de facto a borough, which no-one would ever verbally describe as being as grand as a town let alone a city, but which is often described as a village.

    Funny old language.
     
    Last edited: May 24, 2022

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