When I place my characters into a landscape, I usually
give them fictional surroundings, based on local names, but made up of [usually
Saxon/Old English] naming elements.
I use the same system to give peers names since most are going to be Lord [Somewhere].
If I have a definite county in mind, I look at a map to
see if there are any peculiarities about naming, such as using -hithe, a good
place for a harbour in East Anglia, and Hasel- in rural Wiltshire, as well as
the obvious tre-, pol- and pen- in Cornwall.
I haven't gone into the peculiarities of the Cornish dialect, though I
have made up the name Penroselly for one of my short stories. Thorpe tends to be north-eastern. Glen tends to be Scots. Devon feels right with Otter- [the most famous fictional example being
Ottery St Catchpole, home of the Weasley, Diggory and Lovegood families]
As many surnames are locative there is nothing
wrong with using these elements for surnames, whether to use as people
named after a village, or as a more immediate location, like the surname
Attwood, someone who lives at the wood; Nokes, from Attenokes, he who
lives by the oak trees, etc.
Following are lists of naming elements with their
meanings, for mixing and matching as seems appropriate. Unless appended as ON
[old Norse] Lat. [Latin] or Celt [Celtic] they are Saxon in origin.
Land
land an area of land
acre, aker, iker,ager an area of land, an acre is a
measure of land.
hurst, hersh, nersh field
field, feld field
wix, wis[ce],
-wisse marshy meadow
lea, ley, meadow
hale, heale, hele nook
hop[e] remote enclosed space
brick, brig top, slope
dun [Celt] hill
linch, link bank, hedge
lyth, lith, lither [ON] slope
thwaite clearing, meadow, paddock
dale or comb valley
den[e] valley or weedy place
-dish pasture
wynn [celt] pasture
ham settlement or hamm land hemmed by water
ton town
wic[h] town anglicised from Lat. vicus
burgh fortified settlement
cester [Lat] town
to which one may also add mud, sand/samp, ston/stain/stan,
chesil/ching/chilles gravel to add a component of what it may be made of
as well.
Watery words
-ea river
-ea or -ey island or land raised above marsh
beck, brook, brok, burn, bourne, lak[e] stream
keld [ON] stream
fleot, fleet estuary, stream that goes inland
rith/reth small stream sometimes -ry and -ready
mere, mire, marsh, mersh, fen[n] a marshy area
font, spring, well spring
flode, flood, wash an area prone to flooding
strode, stroth, car[r], boggy marginal regions
overgrown with brush and water-loving trees like alder
staith [ON] a
place to tie up boats, usually only found in eastern counties.
vath/wath [ON] ford
wade, ford ford
brig, bridge bridge
Concerned with woods and vegetation
den woodland pasture
wood, holt wood
wold uncultivated land, overun with vegetation
weald, wald the Kentish version
with [ON] uncultivated land
chet, chat [Celt] wood, forest
grove, grave, beer, bere, barrow thicket or grove
hay, hey woodland enclosure
hangar sloping wood
hurst
wooded hill
lound, lund,
shaw, skew, seue small wood, shaw implies single species of tree and can be
teamed with same
frith fir, scrubland
brake, brak, brex, brec brake,furzy bracken
ac, ake, oc, oak, oke, noke, roke oak
As, ask, ash, esk ash
boc, box, beech, bex beech
ew yew
berk, bar, birch, birk birch
holen, holm[e] holly
alor, alr, alder alder
appel apple
piri pear
hazel, hasle, hasel hazel
withy, withi[a], weli- weel, win, sall, saul, willow
hather, thorn, thearne, thyrne hawthorn
elm, alm, el elm
lyne, lind lime
asp, esp aspen
red reed
plus rush, sedge, grass, heath, nut
Animals
ox ox
gos goose
hurt, hart stag
wul, wool wolf
bag badger
beever beaver
tad toad
il hedgehog
al eel
pik pike
cran, hern heron
eld, swan swan
fin woodpecker
fowl, ful fowl
gled kite
craw, crow crow
are eagle
find also fish, fox, frog, raven, cat etc
Miscellaneous
brad, braid broad
durn, darn, dern hidden
dip, dep deep
scal shallow
ful foul
lang, long long
sher[e] bright
so here are some to get you going: Bradwath, Braxstrode,
Withymere, Litherthwaite, Okedene. Have
fun!
