Toponyms

Back in 2007, I posted a little quip about a town called Chipping Sodbury in England. Since then, I've become delightfully intrigued by place names in Great Britain.
The study of place names is called toponomy, and the British seem especially adept at naming and holding those names. Here in the U.S. we don't have the thousands of years of history and multiple languages that England has had. Nor do we have a strong emotional tie to history as a whole.
The old joke where I live used to be "Ohio is a Native American word meaning beautiful. Cleveland is a Native American word meaning not." Not only is that only vaguely humorous, but like most cities in the States, Cleveland is named after its founder. Snore. In addition, its streets (those that aren't numbered) are named after people too. Snore.
But in England, it seems, the names of cities, towns and even streets teach you something of what was once upon a time. Cities and towns there are named after people too, though in more interesting ways. Most place names with ING in it denote ownership either of a thing or the people in the area or both. Names ending in TON or TUN refer to farms. So a toponymist would deduce that Durrington means Durr's farm or something like that.

Here's the best part: some of those names aren't quite the thing anymore. Over time our slang has given new meaning to words that at one time were relatively harmless. I do hope that these unique names aren't sanitized out of existence. I, for one, would love to live on Butt Hole Road.