ICA course on Toponymy

Names become part of the language and when the language changes the names change with it. For example when other language groups come into an area, names are usually passed on and are adapted to the new language.

Example: the city of York in Northern England:

Pre-Roman times: Eborakon (place of yew trees) - Celtic language
Roman times: Eboracum - Latin influences
Anglian period: Eoforwic - probably because they took the 'ebor' as refering to eofor, which denotes a wild boar (a wild boar is still called 'ever' in Dutch); hence the meaning would change to place of the wild boar)
Viking period: Yorvik - Eoforwic was misunderstood by the Norsemen who invaded the area in the 8th century, and took the endig - wic - for the norse word - vik - that is 'port', and contracting 'eofor' to 'yor' and consequently changed it into Yorvik, which gradually turned into York.