tenth or eleventh century. Other Manx býs, however, are today identical in form and
pronunciation with their parallels in England, for example Dalby in the parish of Kirk
Patrick and Dalby in Yorkshire. Some of these analogical formations might perhaps have
been introduced to Man after the crown had been granted by the English king to Sir
John Stanley in 1405 but it is more likely that they simply reflect English influence.
Leaving the Scandinavian names of Danelaw origin behind us, both those coined in
the Viking period in England and those coined in England, Scotland and Man on
analogy with English names, the most impressive Scandinavian presence in the British
Isles is that of the names in Shetland and Orkney, where Norse settlement would seem
to have begun in the ninth century and gradually to have ousted all the older names
there of Pictish or Celtic origin. No trace survives today of these earlier names. The
Norse language in Shetland and Orkney is generally referred to as Norn and would seem
to have come from western Norway and to have become totally dominant by the middle
of the eleventh century. Norn survived here until the islands were pledged to the
Scottish Crown by King Christian I of Denmark in 1468 – 9 but Lowland Scots became
dominant in the late sixteenth century and subsequently English. Although most of the
old Norn names survive in Shetland and Orkney, as a living language Norn must have
died out by the end of the eighteenth century (Barnes 1998 : 2 – 4 , 26 ).
Many of the Norn settlement names originally denoted topographical features, for
example Bressay ‘broad island’ and Rousay ‘Hrólf’s island’, Whiteness ‘white headland’ and
Stenness ‘stone headland’, Leiraback ‘clay bank’, Stackhoull ‘stack rock’, Gillsbreck ‘ravine
by a slope’ and Howth ‘head’, Gru ‘a pit’ and Dale ‘a valley’, Bretto ‘steep river’ and Laxo
‘salmon river’, Roerwater ‘reed lake’ and Groundwater ‘shallow lake’, Haroldswick ‘Harald’s
bay’, Sandwick ‘sandy bay’, Lerwick ‘clay bay’ and Snarravoe ‘snare bay’, Hamnavoe
‘harbour bay’ and Laxvoe ‘salmon bay’, as well as Ramnageo ‘raven cleft’ and Trolle Geo
‘trold cleft’ (Crawford 1995 : 26 – 41 ) (Figure 28. 5 ).
There are also originally habitative Norwegian place names in the Northern Isles.
Some of these names are of comparatively rare occurrence, for example those containing
the element -heimr, for example Sullom, an original sólheimr ‘sunny farm’ and names
reflecting older leikvin ‘playground, sports field’. These are stereotype names that were
brought over from Norway as names (Fellows-Jensen 1984 : 154 ).
Figure 28. 5 Ramnageo, Shetland: Norn hrafn ‘raven’ and gjá ‘cleft, ravine’.–– Gillian Fellows-Jensen––