Survey of English Place-Names

Etymology

BODEBI (lost), 1086 DB. This may be an error for Bonby supra , as first suggested in DB 155 and then retracted in DB lxxxvi as being improbable. It is mentioned between Thornton and Wootton and the editors of DB tentatively refer to it as “probably an extinct hamlet in or near the parish of Thornton Curtis”. They point out that “Bodebi is elsewhere the equivalent of Boothby”. It is found with the identical form Bodebi in DB Abbreviatio (PRO, Treasury of Receipts, E 36/284) a MS dated to the first half of the 13th century. Accepting the form, then, at face value, the meaning is literally 'the village of the booths, temporary shelters', from the gen.pl. of bōth and bȳ , identical with Boothby (Welton le Marsh) LSR, Boothby Graffoe and Boothby Pagnell Kest.