which shows some traces of the original form. It is not difficult to see that Sawbridgeworth and Woolfardisworthy are derived from the well-known personal names Sǣbeorht and Wulfheard; but the modern local forms 'Sapser' and 'Oozery' would, if we had no other evidence, be hopelessly obscure.
The syllable -ing, which frequently occurs in place-names of Old English date, has given rise to a great deal of mistaken speculation. Some have imagined it to be identical with the modern dialect word ing, a meadow; this word, however, did not exist in Old English,[1] but represents the Old Norse eng, a meadow. It is found in some modern place-names, as Ingbirch worth, Ings; but the syllable ing that appears so often in Old English names has a different origin. In Old English this syllable was added to personal names to form patronymics, like -ίδης in Greek. Thus, in the Biblical genealogies, 'Seth was Adaming' stands for 'Seth was the son of Adam'. It was also appended (in the plural form -ingas, genitive -inga, locative -ingum) to names of places or districts, to form designations for the inhabitants of the locality, as in Sodomingas and Gomorringas, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, Centingas, the people of Kent. It is in the patronymic function that this suffix is chiefly found in English local nomenclature. Sometimes it stands as the ending of a place-name: Godalming, for instance, was the abode of the Godhelmingas or children of Godhelm. More frequently we find a patronymic, formed with this suffix, in the genitive plural, followed by some such word as hām, home, tūn, town (meaning a single farm), as in Buccingahām, Buckingham, which probably means the abode of the descendants of Bucca.[2] There are many place-names of similar forma-
- ↑ A curious mistake has been made by some writers, who have asserted that the word occurs in a list of boundaries in a charter of A.D. 938. This is not the fact; the transcriber of the charter wrote ing on by mistake for inn on, meaning 'into '.
- ↑ This name is known to have been borne by several persons.
