The North East has an abundance of places named after people, geography, or events that occurred at the time they were given a name.
Look more closely at the signposts or an Ordnance Survey map, and you will notice dozens of villages ending in by, and the occasional wick or ley.
But why is this?
According to the Key to English Place-Names (KEPN) from the Institute for Name-Studies at the University of Nottingham, most place names in England are over a thousand years old and reflect the languages of the people who named them.
One of the most distinctive endings in place names across northern England is by.
When you see it, you are looking at the legacy of Old Norse settlers and the era of the Danelaw. The suffix býr in Old Norse meant "farmstead" or "village".
For example, the place name Thornaby, in Middlesbrough, means 'Thormoth's farm'.
When you see a place name ending in ley (sometimes spelled leigh), you are usually looking at the work of early Anglo-Saxon settlers who cleared woodland to create fields, hamlets or farmsteads.
English Heritage notes that the element wic often means "farm or dairy farm" in Anglo-Saxon England.
Here are some more examples of how the end of a place name was shaped by those who lived there:
It lies where Norse and Anglo-Saxon naming zones overlap, showing how -wic and -ton elements merged over time. Witton-le-Wear literally means "the farmstead by the trading place on the Wear."
Meaning: "Stone clearing."
A. D. Mills traces the name to Old English stān (stone) and lēah (woodland clearing).
The name fits Stanley's elevated landscape above the River Derwent and shows how ley names described local geography rather than personal ownership.
Meaning: "Settlement on the River Aln."
The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names and KEPN trace it to Old English wic (settlement or farm) combined with the river name Aln.
The name shows how wick indicated a farm or settlement by water, later developing into a market and castle town.