subject: Interesting Origins Behind London Place Names [print this page] Due to Englands diverse history, its place names do not share single point in time in which they were created and instead have often derived from a variety of different historical eras. Nowhere is this more apt than in London. The streets and boroughs of London have a wide ranging etymology stretching centuries back into the past. Today many of the place names are seemingly made up of meaningless words (to us in the 21st century at least) and the true meaning can be rather obscure. Some of the street and place names do not even actually mean what they now appear to, and had a very different meaning when they were originally thought up.
Many of the areas and places in London have obvious meanings. Waterloo is named after the famous Battle of Waterloo in 1815 while Camden was named for the 1st Earl of Camden in 1795. Earls Court, unsurprisingly was named for the Earls who were landowners in the area. Piccadilly gets its name from a starch collar, a piccadill, that the tailor Robert Baker made his fortune selling. A number of London place names follow something of a pattern, areas and places that end in ham either often to the origin of the word for home, which would refer to a collection of dwellings similar to our word hamlet today. They may also be derived from the Old English word hamm which referred to a place hemmed in by marshland or water. Places ending in ton originate from the word for town and were likely to originally have been a small holding or an estate. The suffix -don derives from the Middle English word for hill. Coupled with these descriptive terms is usually a name of the chief of the area or a landowner. Paddington is, therefore, not named after the bear but the Anglo-Saxon chief Padda effectively it was Paddas Town. The same can be said for Kensington and Tottenham.
There are a fair few places in London, however, that are more misleading in their etymological roots. Cheapside is not actually a reference to the price or status of the area. In fact the cheap comes from the Old English for the word market and can be found in other English place names such as the Wiltshire town of Chippenham literally market town. In a similar vein, though Wormwood Scrubs sounds like the perfect name for an area home to a famous prison, it in fact refers to the nature of the area. The name actually is a reference to the scrubland of the area where the herb wormwood grows. The area named Tooting, despite now being a funny word, actually means nothing more than the family of Tota. Worlds End does not refer to a historical disaster or a prediction for the future, but originally poked fun at the remoteness of the area. Mount Pleasant was a rather sarcastic name for a place home to the local rubbish dump.
Even today there are a number of places that the etymological roots are not known for sure. There are a number of ideas about why the Isle of Dogs in the East End is named as it is. Some claim it was because it was where Edward III kept his greyhounds while others suggest that it was originally known as the Isle of Ducks due to the wildlife present, but the name was corrupted at time passed. A few even put forward that the name is simply a reference to how it is a dogs life for anyone forced to live on it. The word Soho is believed to have originated from a hunting cry but there is not much of an explanation as to why a London area was named after it. Whipps Cross is often said to be named after the whipping of poachers that supposedly took place in this area, but actually more likely derives from Phippes Cross, named after a resident or landowner.
The City of Westminster has a number of interesting place names. Westminster itself was named after an Anglo-Saxon monastery or minister church in the west of the city. Mayfair has very straightforward etymological origins. It was named after the fortnight long May Fair that was held in the area from 1686 until 1764. It was originally known as The May Fair but like many place names has been shortened over the years to simply Mayfair. Many people have claimed that Marylebone came from the French for Marie la Bonne but this is likely to be apocryphal. It is more likely that Marylebone got its name from the church to St Mary that today is long gone but once was built on the bank of a bourne or a small stream. The church was later known by the locals as St Mary at the Bourne which, like Mayfair, was shortened over the centuries to Marylebone. Knightsbridge rather obviously refers to a bridge that crosses the River Westbourne. However the meaning of the knights in the name has been disputed, some believe it was because rich residents used to use the bridge, while others believe it was a reference to the local youths who met up in the area (knight being an equivalent term for lad).
