The place-names of Northumberland

and Tyne & Wear

The place-names of Northumberland are predominantly English in origin. By that I mean that there are few pre-English survivals (other than river names); that names which show Scandinavian influence are almost absent and that names introduced from French are limited to a few monastic and military sites.
Having said this, the number and quality of pre-English names is high for a county on the eastern coast of England. This may be evidence for the survival of a British population, and the low occurrence of early Anglo-Saxon remains in the county may add weight to this argument. Several names have come to us as being pre-English only because they were recorded in Bede's History of the English Church and People. It is understood for example that Bede's Maelmin is now Milfield, a pre-English survival which could easily been overlooked.

The name Lindisfarne has attracted many different derivations over time. With the exception of Magnusson, the derivations have looked at variations based on either Celtic languages or on Old English. It seems to me that no answer to the name can be achieved without also considering the name Farne, the name of the islands which lie south of Lindisfarne and to the east of Bamburgh. Barry Cox gives a derivation for Farne based upon the Gaelic fearran, the same root found in the name of the Isle of Arran to the west of Ayrshire in Scotland. In his derivation of Lindisfarne, he notes that the first element is found in both Welsh and Gaelic, but the whole derivation that he gives is linn fearran. From this he seems to miss a vital connection with other known facts about the two sites.
Firstly, the island of Lindisfarne is referred to as Metcaud in a Welsh source referring to the death of Urien of Rheged. This means that there was already a British name in existence, and it is implausible that they had two names for the island. If this is so, then any derivation from Welsh is unlikely.
Secondly the people who we know came to Lindisfarne were Irish monks, and that their leader St Aidan used the Inner Farne as a retreat, just as St Cuthbert would later do (Bede's EH III. 16 & IV. 28-29). It seems to me that the best derivation of Lindisfarne is lindo fearran (the land of the (tidal) water); a name given by the Irish monks and retained by their loyal English successors.

Allen Mawer noted what appeared to be a cluster of Scandinavian names in the middle parts of Coquetdale around Rothbury, which he understood to be from Rauði's burh. Eilert Ekwall however ignored all of Mawer's Scandinavian derivations and found them to have origins in Old English - Hroða's burh. The only important site which Ekwall allowed to be Scandinavian was Knardale in South Tynedale. This single example can easily be explained as coming from across the Pennines in Cumbria, which has a much higher incidence of Scandinavian names. The Scandinavian derivation of the names in Coquetdale has since been defended by Påhlsson. (EPNS VIII, 1975, pp. 9-11)