what does ham at the end of a place name mean
Place name origins Most English place-names are either Old Norse or Anglo-Saxon but there is a scattering of Celtic names over the whole country. Other place-names are hybrids of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon elements. There are a high level of personal names within the place names, presumably the names of local landowners at the time of naming. In the north and east, there are many place names of Norse origin; similarly, these contain many personal names. In general, the Anglo-Saxon and Norse place names tend to be rather mundane in origin, the most common types being [personal name + settlement/farm/place] or [type of farm + farm/settlement] (almost all towns ending in -wich, -ton, -ham, -by, -thorpe, -stoke/stock are of these types).