Place Names of Hampshire by Richard Coates
By the author of Toponymic Topics and The Ancient and Modern Names of the Channel Islands, this is an alphabetical dictionary giving the origins of the names of towns, suburbs, villages, parishes, manors, tithings, rivers and forests of Hampshire. It contains over 850 entries, and each entry has the location of all places, a range of spellings of each place name dating from the last nine centuries, the ostensible dates of these spellings and the dates they were first recorded, an interpretation and suggested etymology. The opening discussion includes an explanation of difficult elements within the place names, the difficulty of name-changes, the importance of geological, topographical and ecological factors and the historical and cultural factors involved in deciphering the etymology. This should be of interest to local historians and place-name enthusiasts, especially those of Hampshire.