Men whose personal names in the north-west are of later date are those whose
personal names were of Norman or Flemish origin but whose farm names end in -bý, for
example Richard in Rickerby and Robert in Robberby. They were associated with the
plantation of peasant settlers by William Rufus after the capture of Carlisle from
Strathclyde in 1092. It is unlikely that such a large number of place names containing
Norman personal names compounded with the element -bý would have been coined
from scratch unless place names consisting of Scandinavian personal names and -bý had
earlier become well established in the Viking period. The distribution pattern of the
býs in north-western England containing Scandinavian personal names and Norman
ones respectively shows a negative correlation that can best be explained as the result of
an outward movement from Carlisle of settlers with Norman names.
Some of the Scandinavian personal names in Cumberland were even borne by men
still alive in the twelfth century, for example Astin (from a short form of Ásketill) in
Alstonby, and Gamall in Gamblesby (Fellows-Jensen 1985 : 22 ), while across the border
from the North Riding in Durham there are two names in -bý containing personal
names of French origin, namely Folet in Follingsby and Race in Raisby, while the same
type of formation is found in the same century in the Annan valley in Dumfriesshire,
where names such as Lochard and William occur in a string of names in -bý which are
likely to have originally contained Scandinavian forenames.
There are other Scandinavian names in -bý in Scotland which reflect Danelaw influ-
ence (Fellows-Jensen 1989 – 90 : 42 ). Ten of the names in Dumfriesshire and seven of
those in Galloway have first elements other than personal names and most of these have
exact parallels in England, for example Sorbie containing the appellative saurr ‘sour land’,
Applebie and Esbie containing the plant terms epli ‘apple’ and eski ‘place where ash-trees
grow’. There are also similar names in -bý further north in the Central Lowlands of
Scotland, for example those containing ‘sour land’ in Sorbie, hundi ‘hound’ in several
Humbies and veðr ‘wether-sheep’ in Weddersbie. Several of these names have exact parallels
in the Danelaw and must reflect Danelaw influence.
Unlike the býs in Cumberland and south-western Scotland, where some of the names
contain Norman personal names, most of the býs in the Central Lowlands have first
Figure 28. 4 Skirpenbeck, Yorkshire: Danish skerpin(g) ‘dried up’ and bekk ‘stream’.–– Gillian Fellows-Jensen––