In many countries of the world, people can confidently tell you the meaning of their town or city, but most people who live in Manchester, Oxford or Birmingham would not be able to explain what the name of their city means. The name of every British town and city, however, has a long history.
Two thousand years ago, most people living in Britain were Celts. Even the word "Britain" is Celtic. Then the Romans arrived and built camps which became cities called "castra". This is why there are so many place names in England which end in "-chester" or "-caster" – Manchester, for example.
The Romans never reached Wales or Scotland, and many place names there are Celtic (凯尔特语的). For example, Welsh place names that begin with "Llan" come from the Celtic word for church.
After the Romans left Britain, it was attacked by tribes (部落) called the Anglo-Saxons who were from the area of Europe that is now Germany and Holland. Without the Roman army, it was impossible to protect the country from these people. The names of their villages often ended in "-ham" or "-ton". Some got their name from the leader of the village, so Birmingham, for example, means "Beormund's village".
The Anglo-Saxons were farmers and the landscape was very important to them, so we have villages called Upton ("village on a hill" – a good place to build a village) and Moreton ("village by a lake", where floods could make life tough). Place names that end in "-ford" (a place where you could cross a river) also describe the location of Anglo-Saxon villages.
Twelve hundred years ago, the Vikings came to England from Scandinavia. They traded with the Anglo-Saxons but lived in their own villages. These often ended in "-by" or "-thorpe". The name "Kirkby" means "a village with a church" and Scunthorpe was the village of a man called Skuma.
Finally, in 1066, England became Norman – the Normans gave us the place name "grange", which means farm.
And how about London? Experts cannot agree. The Romans called the city Londinium, but they were not the first inhabitants (居民). People once believed that the United Kingdom's capital city got its name from the castle (城堡) of a King called Lud, but this is very unlikely. Our best guess today is that the name comes from a Celtic word meaning a fastflowing river. Like a number of British place names, its history is lost in time.
