People only just realising 'fascinating' reason UK cities have specific names

Daily Mirror

22-05-2025

Have you ever wondered why many places around the UK have similar name endings? They are not just random, and each has a meaning behind it - and people are only just realising
Have you ever wondered how your city or town gets it name? Our UK place names are often used in our day to day vocabulary - whether it's referencing where you live, moving to, or travelling to - and people are only just realising where they came from.
As the last ice sheet retreated about 10,000 years ago, and temperatures began to warm up, humans began to repopulate the British Isles - and they started to label the things they saw. The oldest place names are often derived Celtic and Anglo-Saxon languages and reference the surrounding landscape, such as rivers, hills, or other geographical features.
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Personal names are also a big part of place names. There are enough Kingstons and Bishopstones to make us think it was the most important people who had these places named after them.
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Viral page, Globetrots on TikTok, often shares educational information and fun facts about the UK, from naming the most dangerous areas, to worst roundabouts, and spots with the strictest teachers. Recently, the presenter on the page said: "Have you ever wondered why so many places in the UK end with things like 'ham', 'ton', 'by' and 'caster'?
"Well there's actually a reason this, they're not just random endings."
Starting with places named 'ham', such as Nottingham, Birmingham, and Gillingham, Globetrots explained that this comes from the old English meaning of hām, meaning homestead or village. Globetrots added: "So, if your area ends in ham, it was probably settled by the Anglo-Saxons around 1,400 years ago."
Another common ending for place names is the UK is 'ton', including places such as Taunton, Luton and Brighton. These names derive from the old English word tūn which meant a farm, an enclosure - even an early kind of village. These names are also Anglo-Saxon. "These ones are everywhere, kind of the ancient equivalent of a new build," insisted Globetrots.
Next up is the places ending with 'by', such as Whitby, Grimsby and Derby. Globetrots said: "By literally meant village in Old Norse. These names are all over the north and east."
We also have places ending with 'caster', 'chester' and 'cester', such as Todcaster, Doncaster, Chester, Bicester, Colchester, Manchester, and Gloucester. These endings come from Latin.
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Globetrots explained further: "If you area end with one of these, it started out as a military site over 1,800 years ago."
Concluding how we got our places names, the viral page added: "And if you map all these places out you can literally see how the UK was built. Anglo Saxon names in the south, Viking names in the east and north and Roman names clustered along old roads and frontiers. The names are basically 1,000 year old historical labels telling you who once claimed the land."
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English Hertiage states: "You'll begin to notice some simple suffixes like 'ton' (farm or hamlet), 'ham' (village or estate), 'ly' or 'ley' (wood or a clearing), 'stow' (place or meeting place) and 'bury' (fort). These might be appended to names of local landmarks like rivers, making the meaning fairly obvious, as with the village of Isham in Northamptonshire. The river Ise is nearby, so Isham simply means 'the village by the river Ise'."
One individual commented on the video which has raked in over one million views, and noted: "Ham became hamlet, ton became town." Another shared: "Something ends with 'wick' also came from 'vik' in Old Norse hence Viking influence."
One other added: "Anywhere that ends in Bury is Anglo saxon. Usually means fortified town." One asked: "What about mouth? Weymouth, Plymouth, etc," to which one individual responded, "that usually means it's by the sea, like the 'mouth' of the river as it reaches the sea".
"That's cool," said another watcher of the video. "That's so crazy," said another. "This is fascinating," added another, learning about the name history for the first time.
"Everything means farm in old English," joked another.