How Did The Boroughs Of London Get Their Names?

so a while back I looked into the names of the five boroughs that make up New York City and why five boroughs is certainly impressive London has 33 so let's stop wasting time and take the tube on this etymological Whistlestop tour of the capital city of my home country London in the centre of Greater London lies the city's ancient core still maintaining more or less its original boundaries that would place the medieval times Greater London includes all of its borrowers but this core boroughs also called at the city of London and just to make things more complicated it's not technically a borough the City of London borough is pretty weird but we're here to look at his name the name London has its root in the Roman name for the city they gave the city the name of Londinium however where this name came from remains a mystery although we have a couple ideas two of those ideas come from the names of mythical people one of these being the pre-roman King of Britain a King Ludd another being that it was named after someone of Mythology called a Lundy know this name coming from the Celtic word wild or fierce yet some think that the name comes more from geography than people with the idea London was originally linden or a lindane coming from the Welsh term a lake fort referencing London being situated by the Thames however this video is about all the powers of London not just the City of London itself the City of Westminster borough is next to the city of London and is home to things like Big Ben bucketing palace and Trafalgar Square the name is stably named after the minister of the famous Abbey Church now also known as Westminster Abbey with the West coming from the fact that the borough is west to the main city of London Kensington and Chelsea despite having two names is just one borough both these names are anglo-saxon in origin Kensington is fought to come from finished on the town of the Chinetti people who originally lived on the land Chelsea is fought to come from the anglo-saxon church Fe meaning chalk landing place like the previous Kensington and Chelsea Hammersmith and Fulham a 2-1 borough with two names Hammersmith has perhaps one of the most obvious names it was a place of importance for metal workers also known as metalsmiths who would of course of wards with hammers Fulham comes from the word a full-on hammer being the place of Faust slash mud as full of occupies a bend in the river Thames and when the river would flood the RAM will get rather muddy and full of - Birds going south from the City of London we have the borough of Wandsworth the name first appeared in the Doomsday Book which was a nationwide survey in 1086 so no not as scary as it sounds the name in the book howl was Wonder sword meaning an enclosure of a man named Wendell who is believed to be a person of importance in the land at the time Lambeth east of Wandsworth has a rather simple etymology the name means landing place for lambs coming from originally Lamba fear though it doesn't seem to be quite as full of farms or lambs anymore historically the borough of southwark was part of the county of Surrey and his name relates to this the land was originally settled by Romans originally recorded as these names I'm not attempting to say any of those and translates to two defensive works of the men of the south those southern men meaning the men of Surrey Tower Hamlets is quite simply named after one of the most popular landmarks in the borough the Tower of London with the Hamlet's part of the name referring to the small villages and Hamlet's that surrounded the tower in ancient times despite clearly not being an island the borough of hackney 's name comes from a word for an island or at least a raised piece of land in marshland the name was first recorded in 1198 C II as Hakan leg meaning hackers Island this is for it to be an island S on the River Lea which runs through the modern borough of hackney so who is Hakka Hakka is fought to be the name of a Dane who owned this island at the time with the name of the island coming to be the name for the entire area some feel that Islington should actually be called islem Donna Zidane is the suffix for a hill and can be seen with other London places such as Wimbledon the land was formerly governed by mr. gisla and the land being called AG is Ladon in 1005 C e as time went on the G was dropped and the name transformed to is Lantern Kanda is perhaps most famous for its market yet the name of Kanda is fought to come from the man who owned the land in the late 18th century that being Charles Pratt 1st Earl of Camden his seat as Earl was in Camden place which was in Kent named after William Kandam who lived there in 1906 the borough of Brent got its name from the river that runs through it the river Brent the name Brent is incredibly old perhaps one of the oldest names in London predating the anglo-saxons and the Romans it is fought to come from the Celtic word meaning Holy One or high place Ealing has his name rooted in the name of the anglo-saxon settlers who have fought to have settled there in the first place these settlers were the gila people and their land was called a Gillen Goss while this sounds nothing like the modern name we know that this name shifted over the years from healing to Zealand tour Ealing until Ealing the name we note as today was settled upon hounds lows name isn't as clear to us it could either mean an area of land fit for hunting or named after a hill claimed by someone could hunt or even a whole tribe called the handi some of these etymologies unfortunately lost sort of ravages of time there are two burrows that end with upon Thames to differentiate themselves from other places in England with the same name the first of these being Richmond upon Thames Richmond upon Thames was named after King Henry the seven who before being King was Earl of Richmond named after the town of Richmond in Yorkshire the second upon Thames is Kingston upon Thames the birthplace of a certain etymological extraordinaire like Richmond there's also a Kingston in Yorkshire and Jamaica now that I think about it so the upon Thames helps differentiate them its name is pretty obvious it can't endure title or Ligia Villa meaning in the Kings town mertens name comes from one of two possible sources it was even named after someone called Amalia meaning Maria's homestead all from the saxon term farmed by the pool there's more logic in this latter idea as Merton is on the banks of a river hence why the term pool might be involved with due to flooding at the time Sutton's name too comes from farmland first recorded in the affirmation doomsday both recorded this time as a total coming from the Old English of soft and a ton meaning south farm as Sutton is one of the most southern boroughs of London yet the southernmost borough is Croydon now the spike Croydon being known as something of a concrete jungle and Croydon even sounding somewhat like concrete the name couldn't be further removed from this concrete image the name actually means the valley where wild saffron grows coming from the old english crow which is connected to the modern name for the plaza crocus the flowers were fought to grow on the land 1000 and 200 years ago next to Croydon is Bromley which is the largest borough in all of Greater London Bromley's name is actually two brooms though not the kind witches and wizards ride but the shrub called brooms the name means the open field when a broom bushes grow Lewisham too has a floral etymology the early saxon name for the borough is Leverson meaning house among the meadows Lewis is Saxon for meadow the hand part is a commonplace suffix meaning the dwelling Greenwich as well as the name for a London borough is a course where the name the Greenwich Mean Time comes from the base time in which all other time zones are measured the name Greenwich also calls from anglo-saxon origins coming from the name of Grenaa wick meaning green place on the bay as the bar was and still is covered with greenery the name Bexley was also recorded in the domesday book under name Bix and later big solar the name that means a couple things of similar meaning it's fought to even mean pasture by the stream or box tree clearing taking a step away from the pastoral named bars of London we have Havering Havering is named after the royal liberty of Havering a royal manner that used to be on the land the last bar to have two names is Barking and Dagenham both these names come from ancient anglo-saxon phrases barking Eva means settlement by the bird trees or is named after a local ancient chief court of Baraka they occur is fought to have being a land owner in the area tube and is fought to be where the name Dagenham comes from while there is no longer a red bridge in red bridge there once was and it was this unique a red bridge in which the borough was named after the red bridge was a big deal as most bridges at a time were made of white bricks not a red ones while the bridge may be gone the name still celebrates it Newham is one of the newest boroughs of London it came to be in 1965 and is formed of the earlier East Ham and West Ham the latter lives on as a football team and of course the new in Newham is because of the fact that is a newer borough Wharton force borough is named after exactly what you think it is a forest named water the name Wharton however was originally welcomed Stowe meaning a welcome place Heron gay is named after a Saxon chief howling the name of this chief is also where the places of Haran gay and horns II come from Enfield is London's most northern borough and as the roots of another borough of London Lambeth infielders fought to mean open land of a man named Anna all we're labs are reared after the Old English word for lamp e'en suits IVA Anna's field or lamb field much like the sheepish origins of Lambeth the name of Barnet has its origins in fire it's fought to come from the anglo-saxon word Barnet which means clearing a woodland by burning with the name being first recorded in 1070 C II as Barnett Oh arrows name comes from the fact that is on Harrow Hill but the name itself is for it to come from hag meaning heave enshrine and finally we have the borough of Hillingdon as we mentioned earlier the Don suffix means hill and it's thought to have come from a hill owned by someone called gila gila or helada so yes the name is basically hill hill wow that was a lot of names explained and you know despite being born in London I had so little knowledge of the city before making this video I didn't know my end fields for my Sutton's but now I understand the drug with the end locations of London so much better I guess the next step would be a series of videos on each line of the London Underground explaining how each station on that line got its name that's definitely not something I've been thinking about for a while but would you guys be interested in there and of course thank you to all my awesome patrons I'm still working on making this my 14th career so if you can support the channel financially in any way possible that would be amazing just two dollars a month gets your name here with all these awesome people thank you [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Name Explain

Views: 295,598

Keywords: Name Explain, London, How Did London Get it's name, England, Greta Britain, Geography, history, etymology, language

Id: XGCe_hCer-4

Length: 10min 19sec (619 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 13 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Red_coats]

Thought this might be interesting what with the UK local elections happening. :)

[u/fukatroll]

You should x-post to r/answers

Good question!

[u/neuropsycho]

I love exploring the hidden history of common words.

[u/[deleted]]

Very interesting.