Norse Place Names in Wales: Sources and Corrections

Swansea is Old Norse: Sveinn, a man's name, plus ey, island. Anglesey is Öngull's island, not the island of the Angles, and öngull means fish-hook. Milford is melr and fjörðr, sandbank fjord, and Fishguard is fiskigarðr, a fish yard. Skomer, Caldey, Bardsey and Grassholm are Norse island names on the sea road past Wales. This page gives the source for every slide.

Every factual claim in our carousel on Norse place names on the Welsh coast and in its caption, with its source. It is the fourth in our place-name series, after the Norse names of Sutherland, Dingwall and Kirkwall in Scotland and the fells, becks and tarns of the Lake District. Section numbers 01 to 05 match the number at the top of each slide; 07 to 10 are the later slides' places in the carousel. The cover is a modern illustration. The photographs in 01 to 05 and 07 are real, credited below.

How we cite. Our main guide is Hywel Wyn Owen, director of the Place-Name Research Centre at Bangor and co-author of the Dictionary of the Place-Names of Wales (2007), in his introduction for BBC Wales, "What's in a name? A brief introduction to Welsh place names". The same project's page "Foreign influences on place names" names no author; we call it the BBC page. Both survive in the Internet Archive. Our second guide is Gillian Fellows-Jensen, "Nordic place-names in Ireland and Wales" (Viking Ship Museum, Roskilde, 2008). Word meanings come from Cleasby and Vigfusson's Icelandic-English Dictionary (1874) and A. Mawer's Chief Elements Used in English Place-Names (1924). We did not read the Dictionary of the Place-Names of Wales itself, B. G. Charles on Pembrokeshire, or Thomas Jones's modern editions of the Welsh chronicle; their readings reach us only through the sources named. The 1860 edition of the chronicle often runs a year or two off, so we give the conventional dates. The sagas were written down in the 13th century, more than a century after the battle in 02.

Slide by slide

Cover. "Swansea is a Viking's island. Is your town one too?"

The island belonged to a man called Sveinn; the evidence is in 01. Owen: "This place name put us in touch with a Viking individual." Who Sveinn was, no source says. The cover does not claim every town is Norse; it asks whether yours is.

The picture is a modern illustration made for this post: a small Norse trading ship coming into a wide river mouth, the steersman pointing at a low island among sandbanks. It is not a reconstruction of Swansea's island, whose exact place nobody knows.

01. The 'sea' in Swansea is an island

Owen: "The first element or component of the name is a Scandinavian personal name Sveinn and the second element is the Norse word ey which means 'island'." The project's Swansea entry agrees. On the island itself: "Historians have suggested that it was somewhere in the estuary of the Tawe, and still there centuries later (because of references to Iland 1400, Iselond 1432 and Island 1641) but removed during the construction of the docks in the 19th century." His "suggested" is why the slide says "The island probably stood in the mouth of the Tawe until the docks removed it."

Why -sea: Mawer explains that where ey follows a genitive s, "the influence of the common word sea has led to a re-spelling with final -sea as in Mersea, Osea". The sea in Swansea is the island, re-spelt.

The first record is on coins. Owen: "a coin was minted c.1140 with the name Swensi"; Claire Holmes and Keith Lilley, "Viking Swansea" (Medieval Swansea project): "first recorded on coins dated to the 1140s". Fellows-Jensen also allows "Svein plus either sær 'sea' or ey 'island'"; the slide follows the standard reading, island.

Gerald of Wales, Itinerarium Kambriae (c. 1191) I.8, in J. F. Dimock's Latin edition of 1868: castro de Sweineshe, quod et Kambrice Abertawe vocatur, which R. C. Hoare's translation renders "the castle of Sweynsei, which in Welsh is called Abertawe". In the Descriptio Kambriae (c. 1194) I.6 it is castellum de Abertawe, quod Anglice Sweynesia: Gerald files the Norse name as English, the speech it reached us through. Abertawe is aber, river mouth, plus the Tawe (BBC Abertawe entry). Hence "Welsh kept its own name, Abertawe. Gerald of Wales wrote both down in the 1190s."

What kind of place it was is less certain. Owen reads the coin as "suggesting at the very least a trading post of some kind". Holmes and Lilley call a Viking founding "plausible", but south Wales has yielded no Viking "physical settlement remains".

Sources: Owen, BBC Wales; BBC Swansea and Abertawe entries; Mawer (1924), under ey; Holmes and Lilley; Fellows-Jensen (2008); Gerald, Itin. I.8 and Descr. I.6, Dimock pp. 73 and 172. Photo: Des Blenkinsopp, "Busy at Verdi's", Knab Rock, Mumbles, on Swansea Bay, geograph.org.uk, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped by us, with text added. We do not claim Mumbles as Norse; see below.

02. Anglesey is not the island of the Angles

The BBC page lists Bardsey, Ramsey, Swansea "and Anglesey (the island of Öngull). Therefore, contrary to the popular belief, the name Anglesey is not connected with the Angles." The Anglesey entry says the name "emerged around the 10th or 11th century". Fellows-Jensen: *Önguls-ey, "island of (an unidentified) Öngul", while the Welsh name, Ynys Môn, is "a pre-Viking one".

The fish-hook: Cleasby and Vigfusson give öngull as "an angle, hook", and also "a nickname". In Joseph Anderson's 1873 translation of The Orkneyinga Saga there is "A man named Sigmund Ongul (fish-hook)", and Lena Peterson's Nordiskt runnamnslexikon derives the runic name Öngli "From OW.Norse öngull m. 'fish-hook'." Hence "Öngull means fish-hook, and Norsemen used it as a name." The island is named after a man, not after a hook shape.

1098. Heimskringla, the saga of Magnus Barefoot, in Samuel Laing's translation: Magnus "came to the sound of Anglesey", two earls named Hugh met him, and of two arrows shot at once, the one that "hit the earl's eye, and went through his head" was the king's. Orkneyinga saga has "a great battle in Anglesea Sound", and Anderson names "the two Hughs, Earls of Chester and Shrewsbury". The Welsh chronicle, Brut y Tywysogion, in J. Williams ab Ithel's 1860 edition (under 1096): "earl Hugh was wounded in the face, by the hand of the king himself". The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1098, in J. Ingram's translation: "Earl Hugh was slain in Anglesey by foreign pirates". Gerald (Itin. II.7) names "Hugh, earl of Shrewsbury", armoured everywhere "except his eyes", and says Magnus called down at him lingua Danica, "Leit loupe", in the Danish tongue, "let him leap". The slide says "fought off Anglesey" because the sources name the sound of Anglesey, not a channel.

Sources: BBC page and Anglesey entry; Fellows-Jensen (2008); Cleasby-Vigfusson, under öngull; Orkneyinga saga, trans. Anderson; Peterson (2001); Heimskringla, Magnus Barefoot's saga ch. 11; Brut (1860); Anglo-Saxon Chronicle s.a. 1098; Gerald, Itin. II.7, Dimock p. 129. Photo: John H Darch, "South Stack Lighthouse", Holy Island, Anglesey, geograph.org.uk, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped by us, with text added. The rock is Norse too: the BBC page derives South Stack from stakkr, a stack.

03. Two Norse names hiding in plain English

Milford. The BBC Milford Haven entry: "You would be excused for thinking that Milford is a combination of two English words mill and ford", but the elements are melr, "sand-hill, sand bank", and fjordr, "fiord, inlet". The BBC page adds that "Haven was added later when the meaning of fjorðr had been forgotten". Fellows-Jensen dates the form Mellferth to 1207, and Gerald already writes de Milverdico portu. The slide's "The ford is not an English ford" is Cleasby and Vigfusson on fjörðr: "Engl. ford is a kindred word, but not identical". A fjörðr is a sea inlet, not a river crossing.

Fishguard. The BBC page: "Fishguard derives from Fiskigarðr which means 'an enclosed place to store fish'. By translating it into its corresponding elements in modern English - fish yard - it becomes obvious why the English language adopted the Norse forms". Fellows-Jensen: "an enclosure for catching or keeping fish", with parallels in Normandy, Man and Cumberland. Why the names lasted, in her words: it "may simply be that the Scandinavian words involved resemble English words". That is the slide's "They sounded English enough to survive."

The Welsh names are separate names, not translations. Aberdaugleddau is, in Hoare's note, "the confluence of the two rivers Cledheu"; the BBC Abergwaun entry gives the mouth of the river Gwaun and says "Fishguard is the English form of Abergwaun."

Sources: BBC Milford Haven and Abergwaun entries and BBC page; Fellows-Jensen (2008); Cleasby-Vigfusson, under fjörðr; Gerald, Itin. I.12, Dimock p. 87; Hoare's notes. Photo: Colin Smith, "Fishguard - Lower Town", geograph.org.uk, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped by us, with text added.

04. The Norse charted Wales by its islands

The BBC page: the Norse marked the coasts "where prominent features such as islands were important aids for sailors. Therefore it is no coincidence that the two most common Norse elements in Welsh place-names - ey and holmr - mean 'island'." Holmr "tended to refer to a smaller island than ey", an islet; hence "grass islet" on the slide. Fellows-Jensen: "Most of these names would seem to be those of navigation points of strategic importance for Viking seamen."

The names, one by one. Skomer "derives originally from a form of Skalmey, which is 'cleft island'", possibly after the bays that cut off The Neck (BBC); the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park's place-names list agrees, "Cloven Island". "Caldy means 'cold island'" (BBC), recorded as Caldea in 1100 to 1135 (Fellows-Jensen). Bardsey is "the island of Bárðr" (BBC); Gerald says the Welsh call it Enlli and the Saxons Berdeseie. Grassholm is "grass island", first recorded in the 15th century (Fellows-Jensen). The Great Orme has ormr, "serpent, dragon" (BBC); Fellows-Jensen reconstructs *orms-höfuth, "snake's head", for a headland whose shape "resembles the undulating body of a snake".

More of the same: Flatholm, Gateholm, "island of goats", and Midland Island, recorded early in the 14th century as Middelholm, "the middle island" (BBC). Ramsey is Hrafn's island or wild garlic island; Fellows-Jensen gives both. She reads the south-coast island names as signs of "a Viking trade-route between Dublin and the Severn estuary".

Sources: BBC page; Fellows-Jensen (2008); Pembrokeshire Coast National Park; Gerald, Itin. II.6, Dimock p. 124. Photo: Skomerphoto, "Skomer Island Landscape", via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped by us, with text added. The Neck is in the frame.

05. Seamarks for traders, and for raiders

The dates come from the Annales Cambriae, in Henry W. Gough-Cooper's transcription of the B text (2015), with his A, B and C parallel text and J. Williams ab Ithel's 1860 edition.

987: Gothrit filius Haraldi cum nigris gentilibus vastavit Mon, captis duobus millibus hominum, "Gothrit son of Harald with the black heathens laid waste Môn, and two thousand people were taken". The annal gives no ship count; "a Norse fleet" is our shorthand for a seaborne Viking force. 989: Maredut redemit captivos a gentilibus nigris, nummo pro unoquoque dato, "Maredudd redeemed captives from the black heathens, a penny paid for each". The 1860 Brut (under 988): "a tribute of a penny for each person". The annal does not say these were the captives of 987, so the slide says only that "a Welsh king later bought captives back at a penny a head".

999: meneuia vastata est a gentilibus et morgeneu episcopus ab eis occisus, "St Davids was laid waste by the heathens and Bishop Morgeneu killed by them". The B text gives no year and the 1860 Brut says 998; 999 is the corrected date in modern use, which we did not check in Jones's editions. Gerald (Itin. II.1) adds a legend: Morgeneu, the first bishop there to eat meat, was killed a piratis, by pirates, and his ghost said, "Because I ate flesh, I am become flesh". The raids were old by then: the National Museum's "When the Vikings invaded North Wales" dates "attacks by Vikings on Anglesey and Gwynedd from 854 onwards".

"Most of these names came from sailors and traders, not settlers." The BBC page: in Wales "they visited regularly as raiders and traders." Fellows-Jensen: "The Vikings did not establish fortified urban centres in Wales but there is some evidence for Viking settlement there." Hence "most", not all.

Sources: Annales Cambriae, B text b1009.1, b1011.1, b1021.1; Brut (1860), s.a. 988 and 998; Gerald, Itin. II.1, Dimock p. 104; Amgueddfa Cymru (2007); BBC page; Fellows-Jensen. Photo: M J Roscoe, "Thorn Island, Milford Haven Waterway", geograph.org.uk, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped by us, with text added. The fort on the island is from the 1850s, not the Viking Age.

07. Does your town have a Norse name? Comment below

"Tell us the place and we will tell you what it meant." We start from the oldest written forms. Owen's rule: interpreting place names "depends largely on documentary evidence and not on blissfully assigning meaning on the basis of the modern form". Milford looks like mill and ford, and is not. On the Welsh coast, look for -ey, -holm, stack (stakkr, as in Stack Rock in Milford Haven) and ayr (eyrr, sandbank, as in Point of Ayr), all on the BBC page.

"Found one we got wrong? Send the source and we'll pin the correction." Corrections are listed below.

Photo: Richard Szwejkowski, "Tenby140719", Tenby harbour, Pembrokeshire, July 2019, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped by us, with text added.

08. The Norse named people too

A byname was what other people called you: Sigmund Ongul, "fish-hook", in 02, or Magnus Barefoot. The sagas use them to tell people apart. Our free Viking name generator draws on given names and bynames attested in medieval sources.

09. Put a name on steel

Any blade in our personalized Viking blades collection can carry a farm, a town or a family name, laser-engraved letter for letter, exactly as you approve it. The knife on the slide reads ERIKSSON: Old Norse Eiríksson, "son of Eiríkr". The photograph shows a forged blade with a raven's head at the pommel, a leather-wrapped grip and a stitched leather sheath.

10. Silver, worn whole

Coflein, the national monuments record of Wales, Red Wharf Bay, NPRN 406348: a "hoard of five complete Viking silver arm-rings of Hiberno-Norse type", now in the national museum, "found in the 19th century on the south-eastern side of Red Wharf Bay". Chris Catling, Current Archaeology 435 (2026): limestone quarrying turned them up between 1887 and 1894, and they are "notable for being complete", where most silver of the period was cut into hacksilver and paid out by weight.

The ring is our handmade wolf sterling silver ring, with a Norse animal wrapped round the band: 925 sterling silver, about 7 g, made to order in your size. It is not a copy of the Red Wharf Bay rings.

Caption. Sveinn, the earl, the sea road

"Who Sveinn was, nobody knows." Owen names only "a Scandinavian personal name Sveinn", and Holmes and Lilley do not identify him. See the list below.

"In 1098 King Magnus Barefoot of Norway fought off its coast, and the sagas, the Welsh chronicle and Gerald all remember the earl he shot." See 02: Heimskringla, Orkneyinga saga, the Brut and Gerald. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records it too.

"Skomer, Caldey, Bardsey and Grassholm are Norse island names, seamarks for sailors along the coast." See 04: "important aids for sailors" and "navigation points".

"A Norse name usually marks the sea road, not a Viking town." No "fortified urban centres", in Fellows-Jensen's words. Llanbedrgoch on Anglesey, excavated by the National Museum from 1994 to 2012, was a trading centre run by "arguably the rulers of the kingdom of Gwynedd" (Current Archaeology), with "no trace of a Nordic name" (Fellows-Jensen). Coflein's "Viking-age enclosure and settlement" gives its date, not who lived there.

The rest of the caption repeats the cover and 01 to 05. The photo line credits Des Blenkinsopp, John H Darch, Colin Smith, Skomerphoto, M J Roscoe and Richard Szwejkowski; each file and licence is linked above.

What we do not claim

• That Swansea is named after Sweyn Forkbeard. No source ties him to it; the Welsh annals name him only for Man, a shipwreck and England.
• That it is named after Sweyn Asleifsson, the Orkney raider. No source links him, and the name was already on coins in the 1140s.
• That Swansea means "Sveinn's inlet", "swine sea" or "swan sea". Ey is island; the rest are old guesses.
• That Sweyne's Howes on Gower is Sveinn's grave. Coflein records two Neolithic chambered tombs.
• That Anglesey means island of the Angles, or hook-shaped island.
• That Worm's Head is Norse. The w- is English; Norse ormr has none, as in the Great Orme. Nor that the Vikings saw it as a sleeping dragon.
• That Mumbles is Norse. The BBC Mumbles entry gives Norse múli as one of three suggestions.
• That Tusker Rock is named after a Viking called Tuska. We found no source.
• That Skokholm means wooded island. The readings disagree.
• That Grassholm's name is recorded in the Viking Age. The first record is 15th century.
• That Magnus fought in the Menai Strait. The sources say the sound of Anglesey.
• That Danes killed Bishop Morgeneu. The annals say heathens, Gerald pirates.
• That the Vikings settled Wales as they settled the Danelaw, or that most Welsh place names are Norse. We read no count.
• That Llanbedrgoch was a Viking town. It was a Welsh trading centre with Viking-age contacts.
• That the Llanbedrgoch dead were Vikings, or killed by Vikings. The museum's record of a young man whose wrists appear tied behind his back says only that he died in the 900s, "when Vikings were raiding and trading around the coast of Wales".
• That our ring copies the Red Wharf Bay arm-rings, or that the cover shows a real ship or island.

Corrections

None yet. If you find an error, tell us, with a citation.

Frequently asked questions

What does Swansea mean?

Swansea is Old Norse: the personal name Sveinn plus ey, island. Historians suggest the island stood in the Tawe estuary until the 19th-century docks removed it. Coins of about 1140 spell the name Swensi, and around 1191 Gerald of Wales gives both Sweineshe and the Welsh Abertawe. Who Sveinn was, nobody knows.

Is Anglesey named after the Angles?

No. Anglesey is Old Norse Önguls-ey, the island of a man called Öngull, a name that means fish-hook. BBC Wales's place-name project says the name is not connected with the Angles. The Welsh name, Ynys Môn, is older than the Vikings.

Which place names in Wales are Norse?

Most are on the coast: Swansea, Anglesey, Milford and Fishguard, the islands Skomer, Caldey, Bardsey, Grassholm, Flat Holm and Gateholm, and headlands such as the Great Orme and South Stack. The commonest Norse elements are ey and holm, both meaning island, and the islands they named marked the sea road for sailors.

Did the Vikings settle in Wales?

Not as they settled the Danelaw. They raided and traded along the coast, and the Welsh annals record 2,000 captives taken from Anglesey in 987, but they founded no fortified towns in Wales. Swansea and Milford may have grown as trading places. Llanbedrgoch on Anglesey was a Welsh trading centre, not a Viking town.