Isn't it funny how some names make you laugh, some sigh and some make you wonder...'Hmm, why is it called that?'
I'm not taking about surnames, but street names and place names.
So many are straightforward and describe why they are there and what happened in them or by them.
Like London Road, Beach Avenue, Main St, High St, or Church Lane.
In Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire, you have Wednesday Market and Saturday Market. And yes you've got it. One square holds a market on a Wednesday—thats a very small affair—and a much larger market is held in Saturday Market, well, on Saturdays.
The road between them is called Toll Gavel. Where the tolls on the main road to Hull were collected.
In York you have Whip Ma Whop Ma Gate
There's a fair few descriptions of what this means...either this or that.. or...? Up to you really.
In Newcastle I was fascinated by Two Ball Lonnen, originally a lane with two balls on its gatepost.
You get snickets, ginnels, lanes, alley, vennels or ten-foots, depending what part of the country you live in.
Fleshers Vennel and Cow Vennel in Perth always made me wonder, but I reckon they're self explanatory really.
So many names describing so many things.
And that's before you even look at place names.
(source Wikipedia)
And Emmotland
And mustn't forget Beer, Droop, and the Wallops
In Scotland there's also Dollar, Dull and Ae. I could go on and on, but I won't.
But it does give me, as a writer, great scope for naming characters.
Happy Reading,
love Raven xxx
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