List of Latin place names in the British Isles

List of Latin place names in the British Isles

This list includes places in the British Isles (such as Britain, Ireland, and the Isle of Man), some of which were part of the Roman Empire, or were later given Latin place names in historical references.

Background

Until the Modern Era, Latin was the common language for scholarship and mapmaking. During the 19th and 20th centuries, German scholars in particular have made significant contributions to the study of historical place names, or "Ortsnamenkunde". These studies have, in turn, contributed to the study of genealogy. For genealogists and historians of pre-Modern Europe, knowing alternate names of places is vital to extracting information from both public and private records. Even specialists in this field point out, however, that the information can be easily taken out of context, since there is a great deal of repetition of place names throughout Europe; reliance purely on apparent connections should therefore be tempered with valid historical methodology.

Caveats and notes

Latin place names are not always exclusive to one place — for example, there were several Roman cities whose names began with "Colonia" and then a more descriptive term. During the Middle Ages, these were often shortened to just "Colonia". One of these, "Colonia Agrippinensis", retains the name today in the form of Cologne.

Early sources for Roman names show numerous variants and spellings of the Latin names.

The modern canonical name is listed first. Sources are listed chronologically. In general, only the earliest source is shown for each name, although many of the names are recorded in more than one of the sources. Where the source differs in spelling, or has other alternatives, these are listed following the source. As an aid to searching, variants are spelled completely, and listed in most likely chronology.

Superscripts indicate:
# Latinized form of the Greek-derived name.
# Latinized form of the Asian-derived name via Greek.
# Altered Latinized form of the Greek-derived name.

'?' probably historical mistake

Cities and towns in Ireland

Island names

Region or country names

References

In order of likely publication:

*TA: Tacitus (Gaius Cornelius Tacitus), "Agricola"

*PNH: Pliny (Gaius Plinius Secundus), "Naturalis Historia"; book "PNH" chapter (that is, "37PNH81" instead of the usual "N.H.xxxvii.81").

*PG: Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus), "Geographia"; book "PG" chapter (that is, "2PG3" instead of the usual "II.3"). Ptolemy wrote in Greek, so names are transliterated back into Latin to reveal the original form.

*AI: Antonine Itinerary

*ND: "Notitia Dignitatum"

*RC: Ravenna Cosmography, "Ravennatis Anonymi Cosmographia"

*BSH: Buchanan, George (1506–1582): "Rerum Scoticarum Historia" (1582)

*HLU: Hofmann, Johann Jacob (1635–1706): "Lexicon Universale"

*HD1851: Rejected by modern historians, but seen in this document from 1851 - [http://www.historicaldirectories.org/hd/PAGEVIEWER.ASP?fn=00006QL8.TIF&dn=LUL2002tif&zoom=in] and [http://www.historicaldirectories.org/hd/PAGEVIEWER.ASP?fn=00006ql9.tif&dn=LUL2002tif&zoom=in] (bottom of one page to top of next)

*GOL: The standard reference to Latin placenames, with their modern equivalents, is Dr. J. G. Th. Graesse, "Orbis Latinus : Lexikon lateinischer geographischer Namen des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit" (1909), an exhaustive work of meticulous German scholarship that is available on-line. To use it, one must understand German names of countries, as they were in 1909. The original was re-edited and expanded in a multi-volume edition in 1972.

*A.L.F. Rivet and Colin Smith, "The place-names of Roman Britain", London, 1979 (reprinted by Book Club Associates, 1981).

See also

* Chemical elements named after places (several element names employ Latin place names)
* List of Roman place names in Britain

External links

* [http://www.roman-britain.org/geography/itinerary.htm Antonine Itinerary]
* [http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/scothist/ Buchanan, Rerum Scoticarum Historia]
* [http://www.columbia.edu/acis/ets/Graesse/contents.html Graesse, Orbis Latinus]
* [http://www.historicaldirectories.org/ Historical Directories, England and Wales, from 1750 to 1919]
* [http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/camenaref/hofmann.html Hofmann: Lexicon Universale]
* [http://www.ipa.net/~magreyn4/recint2.htm Latin Names of Places in Great Britain and Ireland]
* [http://www.roman-britain.org/notitia.htm Notitia Dignitatum: The British Section]
* [http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/EUROPE/europe.html Place Names of Europe]
* [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Pliny_the_Elder/home.html Pliny the Elder: the Natural History]
* [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Periods/Roman/_Texts/Ptolemy/home.html Ptolemy: the Geography]
* [http://www.romanmap.com/ Roman Map of Britain]
* [http://members.aol.com/antoninus1/piety/agricola.htm Tacitus: Agricola (English)]
* [http://www.gmu.edu/departments/fld/CLASSICS/tac.agri.html Tacitus: Agricola (Latin)]


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