generic dictionary

The the most prolific generic elements of old English place-names are those referring to natural features and those referring to habitations. The former may be seen as the names of places in the landscape but not necessarily dwelling places.

In Bedfordshire, Oakley (the open space with oaks) may have been named long before a village grew up at the oak lea. But nearby Wooton (wudu tun), is definitely the name of a settlement, in this case the farm by the wood.

The relationship between habitation names and the others is interesting. Using the same region by way of illustration, we could assume that the people living at Kempston, Goldington, or Cardington named the ford at Bedford, Biedanford (the ford of Bieda) and the nearby meadows in the bends of the Ouse, Biedanhamm (Biddenham).

Likewise, somebody from the farms at the wood (Wooton), on the marsh (Marston) or on the shelf (Shelton) will have named the nearby upland fields after the cranes (Cranfield) and the crows (Crawley).

The adjacent "tun's", Kempston, Wooton, Marston and Shelton will probable have been settled by people who saw themselves as belonging to the same group hence the use of natural feature names to distinguish them.

The "tun's" surrounding this group are named after persons or groups of persons such as Lidlington (Lytelaingastun), Cardington (Cenerdingastun), Goldington (Goldatun), and Chellington (Ceolwinnastun).

There are signs that Kempston may have been the first German settlement. A large cemetry with pagan burials existed at Up End and the place-name may contain the British word for land enclosed by a meander, "*cambo". The development of this word into "Kemps" ( the "p" is silent in local pronunciation) can be paralleled by the development of the same word in the river name "cambita", the curved, in the French department of Haute Rhin into Kemz, Kembs following the phonetic rules of the Germanic languages.

Kempston is placed on gravel soil on a small eminence overlooking one of the great meanders of the Ouse. Mortlakes show that the river had in the past developed many pronounced meanders along the course of the main bend.

Look up words in the dictionary of generic terms.