Mongeham is probably Monyn’s Home, for the Monins family have been there or near there since the time of Henry the Third, and are there still. Goodneston, commonly called Guston, was no doubt Godwinston, as in the territory of the great Earl Godwin, and we trace its present name through the earlier forms Gounceston, Goceston, Gusseton, to Guston. Another Goodnestone, near Faversham, appears as Gudewynston in 1469 and Goodwinston in 1529. The Breux, of Wickham Breux, is another Norman addition to a Saxon name.
Ebbsfleet, the so important landing place, first of Hengist and then of S. Augustine, has, of course, been explained by ignorant guessers as the place where the sea ebbs! But its earliest name to be traced is Ypwine’s fliot, i.e., the creek where some Jute of that name settled. Yp is probably the Eop in Eoppa, which is a common Saxon name, also found as Eobba, so that Eobbe’s fleet easily becomes Ebbsfleet. Upper Hardres may take us to the Norman family which came from Ardres in Picardy, although it is possible to find a common Celtic origin for the name both of the French and the English village in the Celtic Ardd, that is, ploughland. It is Heg Hardres, i.e., High Hardies, in early documents.
Horton Kirby was simply Horton until the reign of Edward III., when a Lancashire Kirby married the heiress of the manor and rebuilt the castle. Even in 1377 I find it still called Hortune only. Offham is Offa’s home, and several places, including probably Otham, bear his name. Here this Christian King of Mercia is said to have conquered Edmund of Kent. So Old Romney was earlier Offeton, Effeton, or Affeton. Offa ruled Sussex and Kent, and so we have Offham near Lewes, Offington near Worthing, Offham near Arundel, and Ufton near Tunstall. But the name of Offeton for Old Romney disappears after 1281. Foot’s Cray, and Footbury Hill near there, is named from Godwin Fot the Saxon. Chelsfield is said to record the name of a Saxon Ceol, a shortened form of Ceolmund, or Ceolbald, or Ceolwulf, all of which were common names. Scotney Castle, Lamberhurst, belonged in the 12th century to the Barons de Scoterni, who came from Pontigny, in N. France. They had also Scotney Court, at Lydd.
One may add to these samples of places named from persons, two or three that very probably take us back to mythical personages. Woodnesborough (Wodenesbergh 1465, Wynsbergh 1496), was named by the Jutish conquerors after their god Woden, whom they commemorated among the Teutonic names they bequeathed to our names of the week. There is another Woodnesborough in Wilts, and Wednesbury and Wednesfield in Staffordshire. And we note that the next parish is Eastry. For the name of this very old and important place in Saxon time various derivations have been proposed, but it is more than possible that it is the town of Eástor or Eostre, the goddess of Spring, whose name survived when the conversion of the heathen Saxons gave a new light to the festival in the Spring, which henceforth was to celebrate a greater Resurrection than that merely of the flowers. And possibly a third instance may be found in the name of Aylesford, which is Egelesford in the Saxon Chronicle, and Elesford in Domesday. Amongst various possible derivations that of Eigil, the Teutonic hero-archer or demigod, is worthy of consideration, since it is found as naming places elsewhere; for example, Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire, which in the Saxon Chronicle appears as Ægelesburh.
Absurdities in Derivation.
When a language is not pure, but the result of the intermingling and interaction of several tongues as distinct as Celtic, Saxon and Norman; and when, by the wear and tear of daily use through centuries, place-names have altered in detail of spelling and pronunciation; and when for a long time spelling and reading were arts known but to a small minority of the population, it is plainly inevitable that the original form and real meaning of a place-name should often be difficult to trace. But always in an enquiring mind there was the insistent WHY? which is a characteristic and a glory of man as a reasoning animal, and hence often a meaning was given to a word that is simply a sort of pun, an endeavour to explain a word by what it looks like in current speech or dialect when there was not the knowledge of earlier times and older tongues which elevates mere guessing into the science of etymology.
Some Kentish examples of this source of error may be useful. Thus, when we trace Maidstone back into the earliest records we find that it has nothing to do with either Maid or Stone, but comes through many variations from the Celto-Saxon Medwegston, or town on the Medway. Yet though Lambard knew and quoted this in 1570 he suggested also a meaning of “mighty stone, a name given for the quarry of hard stone there!” So, too, Hasted thinks Loose is so called because the stream loses itself underground (like the Mole in Surrey) for some eight hundred yards at Brishing! He might as well have ascribed the name to Loose and Detling having been long only Chapelries of Maidstone, but at last having been cut loose and made into separate parishes in Elizabethan times!
Tenterden is named, says an old Kentish writer, as “some vulgar fancies conjecture, from the tenderness of its soil”; Feversham, says another old Kentish writer, Phillipott, useful as an historian, useless to etymologists, “is an unhealthy town, and carries the tokens of it in its name.” Id. est., the home of fevers! Harbledown, says Black, is so-called “in allusion to its grassy downs and hills,” as if grassiness were not a characteristic of any and every down and hill in Kent. Gadshill, we are solemnly told, is named from “gads,” clubs used by footpads who were not unknown there (or anywhere else) on Watling Street. We should smile less if the name was Padshill.
And one of the most ancient, and indeed prehistoric, names in Kent is Penypot, a hill opposite Chilham. “Here once,” one old rustic would say, “they dug up a pot full of pennies.” “Nay,” another would respond, “it was where they used to sell ale for a penny a pot in the good old days!” To such vile meanings may descend the venerable Celtic Pen y wlh—the Head of the Mound.
One of the earliest Roman geographers heard of Thanet under its earliest name of Tanet, and because he knew a Greek word Thanatos, which means death, he so interpreted Thanet. On this absurdity he based a baseless legend which Lambarde in 1570 thus describes: “There be no snakes in Tanet (saith he), and the earth that is brought from thence will kill them.” (Why death to snakes any more than to sheep or shepherds? Why not go further and make Thanatos a lifeless place like the Dead Sea?) “But whether he wrote this of any sure understanding that he had of the quality of the soil, or only by conjecture at the woord Thanatos, which in Greeke signifieth death, I wote not.” This is as strong an example of conjectural derivation, with nothing but a superficial resemblance to support it, as we could find. But Lambarde himself, great as he is in many ways, gives derivations almost as baseless, e.g., Blackheath, “called of the colour of the soil!” Wrotham, “given for the great plentie of woorts or good hearbs that growe there.” Farley, “interpreted the place of the Boares, or Bulles” (which? and why?). Sittingbourne, “one interprets it Seethingbourne, Rivus Fervens aut Hulliens” (i.e., the boiling or bubbling river—in that flat country!). This is too much even for him and his times, and so he adds, “but how likely let others see.”