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EVERYONE KNOWS OF THE ARTIFACTS of England's distant past from bones and fossils to jewellery and tools are buried beneath the soil of our country and regularly unearthed by archaeologists. Less appreciated is that there is a quite different historical trail which leads us back through many centuries of our country's history. However, this trail is not buried within the soil, but within our place-names. The earliest sounds of which were uttered by occupants of these islands over 2600 years ago and which have survived into many of the place-names we use today. Place-names have a special significance for a great many people, for their surnames are also names of English places: some will have local feature names such as Brook, Hill, Bridge, Wood and Field and some will have names recalling the village, town or district from which a mediæval ancestor originated. What's in an English Place-Name? offers a fascinating chance to trace the names within our localities back to their roots and to give an absorbing insight into our district's histories. Discussing the origins of hundreds of place-names in England this book provides a comprehensive understanding of how place-names arose.

This book tells the engaging story of when our surnames first came into use, why they were necessary and how people acquired them. At some point we all consider our surnames - many of us will wonder about the stories behind them, especially if they are unusual. Those of us with British surnames possess that magic thread which leads back nearly a thousand years to a time when surnames were a new idea on this side of the English Channel. There have been many books with surnames as their theme: dictionaries of surnames, books about unusual surnames, heraldry, researching family history and so forth, but there are few books which look at British history solely through surnames. Although the origins of the majority of British surnames lie in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, the author shows that the near-Continent, especially France, has contributed its share too. The author has provided accounts of over 2000 of our surnames. Within this book the reader will find the answers to many questions about our surnames and will perhaps encourage its reader to pursue the study further. CONTENTS: What are Surnames and how old are they? - Surnames from Occupations - Surnames from Places - Surnames from Local Features - Surnames from Relationships - Surnames from Words of Affection - Surnames from Nicknames - Surnames from Personal Names - Postscipt - References - General index - Index of surnames.