You forgot a few important ones. -torp, -thorpe, -strup, -trup, -rup a new settlement founded by people leaving an old settlement and founding a new. Usually the first part of the name is the name of their leader. e.g. Lystrup is Lyr's thorp. Lyr was an incarnated heathen (they have just build a church next to his burial mound). -vi or vi- a holy place. Odense is presumably Odin's vi and Viborg is the castle at the vi. The castle came later. Viby is the town at the vi. -gaard is a large farm or "curia" (in Latin), not exactly a castle or fortress. This presumably became -gorod in Russian. Miklagaard/Miklagàrd is the great curia (Constantinople which was heavily fortified) -bæk, bek, beck, -beq that is a settlement near a rivulet (occurs in e.g. Normandy)
I'm from just outside Glasgow, Scotland. You mentioned some words that sound like words we use. I always thought we were just saying certain English words with our accent but maybe our language was influenced by Norse. For example we can say Hame instead of Home. Sounds exactly like the way you pronounced "heimr" without the R. We also call Stones, Stains. Again very similar to the Norse pronunciation.
Ah'm eftir greetin aboot flittin ti a braw new hame! Cos the ness is fu i clegs. I think we are still partly speaking some form of Norse! Certainly in modern Scots vernacular, you would remove the endings of certain words (to, from, full, etc.) as in Old Norse, and pronounce them in a slightly different way from English (home = hame; out = oot; after = eftir, and so on).
Hame, stain, bairn and oot are all native English words, the reason why the words in Scots are different from those in Southern English is because the great vowel shift affected different dialects in different ways. That is not to say Northumbrian English (of which Scots is an example) doesn't contain even more Old Norse words than standard English, it's just that the commonly cited examples (e.g. hame, out, bairn, ken, etc) aren't those loanwords.
Yes, hame and stain are native Scots terms. That's not to say that there isn't a not of Old Norse in Scots, which there is, but those two words are not Norse but Scots. :)
I always love travelling to the East Riding of Yorkshire and seeing more Thorpes, Thwaites and Bys as I get closer to the coast, it's so interesting to keep track in my head of the interesting toponyms
I love this video, since I've learned German and have dabbled a tiny bit in Scandinavian languages, I've had lots of fun identifying place names throughout the US and UK that have their roots in Germanic languages. It's really like a historical secret that is fun to discover and I'm glad you feel the same way :) thank you by the way, you're a huge inspiration to me, I just earned my BA in medieval history and Germanic studies and I'm pursuing graduate school next year! ✌🏻❤️
Hiya.. hallo.. We here (Scotland) have a town in the North West, in viking times, norse raiders controlled that area fir centuries, the towns name is Ullapool... what a great channel, I've been learning Norwegian for 1 year now.. Ha deg bra bror
Writing from England, there are no end of villages with -by as their name endings in central and northern England,, e.g. Beeby, Badby, Ratby, Gaulby, Goadby, Oadby, Somersby, Thornaby. Those Vikings certainly left their marks, in many ways.
Doc, if you ever come down to Colorado Springs for a lecture, please that be known a month in advanced so I can what I can to attend that. Until then, thanks always for sharing your knowledge here. Have a great day, everyone.
I come from a place originally called Hagiwulfsrum which is now somewhat abbreviated. A river runs through it down to the baltic sea and on one side of it is a hilled ridge. It has two hilltops now hidden in the pine woods called Korpkullen (Raven's Hill) and Borgkullen (Burg's Hill). I'm from Sweden, of course.
I love to find out information about things like this, just asking myself random questions of why things are like it is today, f.example where i'm from in Norway is today called Østfold, but it's previous form was something like Austrfold which means ''east of fold'' (fold is the old name of the Oslo fjord). Just by finding information about how my county's name originated started something in me to see connections and history of places and cultures, the joy of finding out how everything is connected and related to everything and so on is really nice.
Here's a recommendation for a fascinating old book: "The Viking and the Red Man", by Reider Sherwin, Funk & Wagnalls, 1940. This author began to notice that there were many places named Matawan in the USA, and that they were all places that were a "meeting of waters." And that "meeting of waters" in Old Norse sounding something like "Matawan"! He discoverd other such all over North America, such as Winnipeg, which could be Old Norse for "water that is like pitch." The thesis of the book is that many place names that are attributed to Indian languages can actually be traced to Old Norse. Gotta love those wandering Vikings! Give the bok a try!
My home town of Widnes was supposedly named by the Danish. A combination of "Ved" (Old Norse: "viðr", Anglo-Saxon: "widu"), meaning wood or forest and "nes" (as you mentioned in the video) meaning peninsular.
Great video, a personal favorite place suffix derived from Modern Icelandic is -fjörður and -fjarðarbær. I don't know about the Old Norse equivalent but -eyri (e.g. Suðureyri)is another one...
I live near Whitby and until now I always thought the by at end come from old Norse for town by the sea, but now I know the truth, thanks :D also near York never knew about that
An interesting note is that in Swedish the consequent (suffix wouldn't be the right word) "-sta" is used for many place names in mid- to northern Sweden. For example "Birsta" where I live or "Nacksta." It comes from the same origin as "staðir" and means place. I always wondered if Birsta thus means "a place to make or drink beer;" "bir-sta."
In Shetland, Orkney and the North of Scotland, there are many placenames descended from the Old Norse word "bolstadr" (farm or secondary or summer farm). But there are variations on the abbreviated endings that have developed. So that's why we have Fladdabister and Aithsaetter, but we also have "sta" endings such as Tolsta, Scatsta and Gremista. An interesting placename ending in Shetland ("Hjaltland") is also "berry", as in "Ollaberry", (which obviously is on a hill, and which mimics the current Swedish pronunciation of "berg"). And on the island of Unst, we even have a Newgord!
What about "gárðr"? I know that it is modern peninsular north Germanic (in the form of gård) a word for a yard or farm. I've seen it been used in big cities and areas such as Novgorod (holmgárðr) and the area around it (garðaríki); Constantinople (miklagárðr) and even Miðgarðr, the whole world. I remember that you have mentioned it before and it feels like it's missing in this video...
Gard originally means 'enclosure', 'home' or fixed settlement, from the very small scale as a farm (which is the contemporary Scandinavian meaning), to a fortified town (Holmgard) to the whole world (Midgard, Asgard).
Filip SuperEddyn In Yorkshire, my home county, many place names have the ending "garth", for example, Aisgarth and Arkengarth(dale). Furthermore, many towns with "by", "gate"and "beck" endings also.
As always great videos. But why nothing on 'torp' (an 'extention' farm moved out from an other place). Swedish: torp, -arp, Danish: - strup, - rup, - up, Danelaw: - Thorpe. Or 'holt' (forrest, woodland) as in German: Holtz Or Danish '-lev' (to leave, as in inherritance). 'Left to' or 'Left from' indicating that the arrable land is already taken/occupied. E. g. SKULDELEV (The sinking place of the 5 Roskilde Viking ships) mening 'Left/given to/or from Skuldr'. Or do you, as some do, consider that to be bronzeage names?
In danish a "by" is just a village or town - is that from the same root as the Bør / býr word you mention in the video? So towns in Denmark ending in by, i.e. Rødby, were originally "-farm" i.e. Redfarm?
Just wandering... "By" means town in Danish, "stad" means city... But perhaps it's developed to that through time? Also, how about the ending "-ing " in Danish? I've been told by a local historian, that is stems from the Vikings as well. I grew up in a place very rich in viking history. Both graves and ships. 😊
I heard tell of "þorp" being a common element of place names, one still used in England in particular (such as Scunthorpe). I also believe Grjótaþorp is a district in modern-day Reykjavík. Was this an import into Old Norse from contact with people living in England, or vice versa? Many thanks.
Well... In modern Norwegian, 'Nes' means headland and 'bø' means farm(land) or (fenced-in) meadow, so it could possibly be translated as 'headland farmland'. The name 'Jo' is a Norwegian shortened form of John.
Yes, which makes the Firth of Forth somewhat over-alliterative! But very descriptive, considering its size. Another similar example if "sound", such as the "Sound of Mull", which when pronounced in a Scottish way is "Soond" or "Sund".
You forgot a few important ones.
-torp, -thorpe, -strup, -trup, -rup a new settlement founded by people leaving an old settlement and founding a new. Usually the first part of the name is the name of their leader. e.g. Lystrup is Lyr's thorp. Lyr was an incarnated heathen (they have just build a church next to his burial mound).
-vi or vi- a holy place. Odense is presumably Odin's vi and Viborg is the castle at the vi. The castle came later. Viby is the town at the vi.
-gaard is a large farm or "curia" (in Latin), not exactly a castle or fortress. This presumably became -gorod in Russian. Miklagaard/Miklagàrd is the great curia (Constantinople which was heavily fortified)
-bæk, bek, beck, -beq that is a settlement near a rivulet (occurs in e.g. Normandy)
Wouldn't the -Torp endings be cognate to German "-Dorf"
I'm from just outside Glasgow, Scotland. You mentioned some words that sound like words we use. I always thought we were just saying certain English words with our accent but maybe our language was influenced by Norse.
For example we can say Hame instead of Home. Sounds exactly like the way you pronounced "heimr" without the R. We also call Stones, Stains. Again very similar to the Norse pronunciation.
home heim stones steinar heimr i think is yoused fore the world to heimurin faroese
Ah'm eftir greetin aboot flittin ti a braw new hame! Cos the ness is fu i clegs. I think we are still partly speaking some form of Norse! Certainly in modern Scots vernacular, you would remove the endings of certain words (to, from, full, etc.) as in Old Norse, and pronounce them in a slightly different way from English (home = hame; out = oot; after = eftir, and so on).
Hame, stain, bairn and oot are all native English words, the reason why the words in Scots are different from those in Southern English is because the great vowel shift affected different dialects in different ways. That is not to say Northumbrian English (of which Scots is an example) doesn't contain even more Old Norse words than standard English, it's just that the commonly cited examples (e.g. hame, out, bairn, ken, etc) aren't those loanwords.
Scots dialect comes from old English, which is closer to Nordic languages than modern English is, that is where 'Hame' comes from.
Yes, hame and stain are native Scots terms. That's not to say that there isn't a not of Old Norse in Scots, which there is, but those two words are not Norse but Scots. :)
I always love travelling to the East Riding of Yorkshire and seeing more Thorpes, Thwaites and Bys as I get closer to the coast, it's so interesting to keep track in my head of the interesting toponyms
Aw I saw the thumbnail and thought I was gonna watch Robert De Niro try to pronounce Old Norse place names.
or Kevin Spacey doing a Robert De Niro impression
Toponymy is a fascinating subject and the Norse influence in Britain shows up all over.
I love this video, since I've learned German and have dabbled a tiny bit in Scandinavian languages, I've had lots of fun identifying place names throughout the US and UK that have their roots in Germanic languages. It's really like a historical secret that is fun to discover and I'm glad you feel the same way :) thank you by the way, you're a huge inspiration to me, I just earned my BA in medieval history and Germanic studies and I'm pursuing graduate school next year! ✌🏻❤️
Where I come from in Ireland the old name for Waterford was Veðrafjǫrðr in old Norse
vegrafjørður in faroese
Thank you so much for your efforts, as always, Dr. Crawford.
Hiya.. hallo..
We here (Scotland) have a town in the North West, in viking times, norse raiders controlled that area fir centuries, the towns name is Ullapool... what a great channel, I've been learning Norwegian for 1 year now..
Ha deg bra bror
Writing from England, there are no end of villages with -by as their name endings in central and northern England,, e.g. Beeby, Badby, Ratby, Gaulby, Goadby, Oadby, Somersby, Thornaby. Those Vikings certainly left their marks, in many ways.
Doc, if you ever come down to Colorado Springs for a lecture, please that be known a month in advanced so I can what I can to attend that. Until then, thanks always for sharing your knowledge here. Have a great day, everyone.
Wednesfield near me in central England, is Wodensfield in Old English which derives from the Danelaw occupation and settlement.
I came here to learn about Old Norse, then find out about New York. Cool.
Plenty of Norse-origin names here in Cumbria too (north-western England). Kendall, Ambleside, Grayrigg, Wansfell, Kenthwaite, etc!
vatnfall
I come from a place originally called Hagiwulfsrum which is now somewhat abbreviated.
A river runs through it down to the baltic sea and on one side of it is a hilled ridge. It has two hilltops now hidden in the pine woods called Korpkullen (Raven's Hill) and Borgkullen (Burg's Hill). I'm from Sweden, of course.
Very informative
I love to find out information about things like this, just asking myself random questions of why things are like it is today, f.example where i'm from in Norway is today called Østfold, but it's previous form was something like Austrfold which means ''east of fold'' (fold is the old name of the Oslo fjord). Just by finding information about how my county's name originated started something in me to see connections and history of places and cultures, the joy of finding out how everything is connected and related to everything and so on is really nice.
Here's a recommendation for a fascinating old book: "The Viking and the Red Man", by Reider Sherwin, Funk & Wagnalls, 1940. This author began to notice that there were many places named Matawan in the USA, and that they were all places that were a "meeting of waters." And that "meeting of waters" in Old Norse sounding something like "Matawan"! He discoverd other such all over North America, such as Winnipeg, which could be Old Norse for "water that is like pitch." The thesis of the book is that many place names that are attributed to Indian languages can actually be traced to Old Norse. Gotta love those wandering Vikings! Give the bok a try!
its sad to see valuable history not being valued as it should be :(
I want to be a part of it:
New Jórvík, New Jórvík
It's a hellova town.
My home town of Widnes was supposedly named by the Danish. A combination of "Ved" (Old Norse: "viðr", Anglo-Saxon: "widu"), meaning wood or forest and "nes" (as you mentioned in the video) meaning peninsular.
But what about New Amsterdam 😉?
I live in River Bay. Lögr (water, but here specifically the Numedalslågen river) vik (bay/inlet). Larvik.
larvik in faroese leirvík
in today shetlandic lerwich old leirvík
I always love your videos, Viking Cowboy
Great video, a personal favorite place suffix derived from Modern Icelandic is -fjörður and -fjarðarbær. I don't know about the Old Norse equivalent but -eyri (e.g. Suðureyri)is another one...
faroese fjørður -fjara bigd -oyrið -suður oyrið
Thank you! 🌞
Besides Vinlund, didn't the Vikings have elaborate names for foreign lands from Asia to Europe to modern-day Americas?
Shin Kansen Constantinople was called Miklagárđr or something
I live near Whitby and until now I always thought the by at end come from old Norse for town by the sea, but now I know the truth, thanks :D also near York never knew about that
An interesting note is that in Swedish the consequent (suffix wouldn't be the right word) "-sta" is used for many place names in mid- to northern Sweden. For example "Birsta" where I live or "Nacksta." It comes from the same origin as "staðir" and means place. I always wondered if Birsta thus means "a place to make or drink beer;" "bir-sta."
staðir is in faroese birta faroese lightning in the morning
beer in faroese bjór
In Shetland, Orkney and the North of Scotland, there are many placenames descended from the Old Norse word "bolstadr" (farm or secondary or summer farm). But there are variations on the abbreviated endings that have developed. So that's why we have Fladdabister and Aithsaetter, but we also have "sta" endings such as Tolsta, Scatsta and Gremista. An interesting placename ending in Shetland ("Hjaltland") is also "berry", as in "Ollaberry", (which obviously is on a hill, and which mimics the current Swedish pronunciation of "berg"). And on the island of Unst, we even have a Newgord!
fetlar fetil lerwick leirvík ther are menny in shetland
lamba ness lambanes
What about "gárðr"? I know that it is modern peninsular north Germanic (in the form of gård) a word for a yard or farm. I've seen it been used in big cities and areas such as Novgorod (holmgárðr) and the area around it (garðaríki); Constantinople (miklagárðr) and even Miðgarðr, the whole world. I remember that you have mentioned it before and it feels like it's missing in this video...
Gard originally means 'enclosure', 'home' or fixed settlement, from the very small scale as a farm (which is the contemporary Scandinavian meaning), to a fortified town (Holmgard) to the whole world (Midgard, Asgard).
Well that's almost exactly what I wrote, the point of the comment was more to highlight a word that in my opinion should've been in the video.
Filip SuperEddyn
In Yorkshire, my home county, many place names have the ending "garth", for example, Aisgarth and Arkengarth(dale). Furthermore, many towns with "by", "gate"and "beck" endings also.
Yep, take Novgorod and Beograd, for example. We can safely say that -gard has a very wide use in several languages.
today it is garður gardur garðr
super interesting video + very handsome doctor
As always great videos.
But why nothing on 'torp' (an 'extention' farm moved out from an other place). Swedish: torp, -arp, Danish: - strup, - rup, - up, Danelaw: - Thorpe.
Or 'holt' (forrest, woodland) as in German: Holtz
Or Danish '-lev' (to leave, as in inherritance). 'Left to' or 'Left from' indicating that the arrable land is already taken/occupied. E. g. SKULDELEV (The sinking place of the 5 Roskilde Viking ships) mening 'Left/given to/or from Skuldr'. Or do you, as some do, consider that to be bronzeage names?
In danish a "by" is just a village or town - is that from the same root as the Bør / býr word you mention in the video? So towns in Denmark ending in by, i.e. Rødby, were originally "-farm" i.e. Redfarm?
by town landsby willage rødby redtown farm bondegård
Tórshavn
That's why so many places in Iceland end with 'fjorđur'
Because there are a lot of fjords here
Just wandering... "By" means town in Danish, "stad" means city... But perhaps it's developed to that through time? Also, how about the ending "-ing " in Danish? I've been told by a local historian, that is stems from the Vikings as well. I grew up in a place very rich in viking history. Both graves and ships. 😊
I heard tell of "þorp" being a common element of place names, one still used in England in particular (such as Scunthorpe). I also believe Grjótaþorp is a district in modern-day Reykjavík. Was this an import into Old Norse from contact with people living in England, or vice versa? Many thanks.
Sir Percival the Gallant many thanks for the heads-up! I appreciate your time.
Þingvöllr... Or meeting place of the Þing... Or council.
Became Tynwald, Tingwall, Thingwall as well as Dingwall, where I live.
new york represent!!!
(lovely setting there by the way, prof. !)
So does the author Jo Nesbo's last name literally mean "peninsula farm"?
Well... In modern Norwegian, 'Nes' means headland and 'bø' means farm(land) or (fenced-in) meadow, so it could possibly be translated as 'headland farmland'. The name 'Jo' is a Norwegian shortened form of John.
bø and innangarð and outh side it uttangarð
Does the surname "Vig" come from the Old Norse word "vík" (bay)?
Is the Scots word "firth" the same as the Norse word "fjord"?
Some one mentioned it may be that "fjord" is pronounced like firth.
Yes, which makes the Firth of Forth somewhat over-alliterative! But very descriptive, considering its size. Another similar example if "sound", such as the "Sound of Mull", which when pronounced in a Scottish way is "Soond" or "Sund".
Why are your videos not monetized?
I wonder how many place names are named after various Gods and Goddesses?
So "Jór" ≠ horse, like it does in older Icelandic?
Komdu sæll félagi.
Eofor- er oldengelsk, dvs. germansk og ikke keltisk. Eofor har det nordiske kognat jǫfurr (islandsk jöfur).
What is the location?
Notice me sensei
nes=isthmus
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