English Place-name Society

Survey of English Place-Names

A county-by-county guide to the linguistic origins of England’s place-names – a project of the English Place-Name Society, founded 1923.

Bubbenhall

Major Settlement in the Parish of Bubbenhall

Historical Forms

  • Bubenhalle 1086 DB
  • Bubenhull 1211 RBE 1242 Fees
  • Bobenhulle c.1225 ADiv 1248 RegAlb 1279 Nott 1656 Dugdale
  • Bobinhull 1236 Pat 1316 FA 1382 ADiv
  • Bobenhill 1275 RH
  • Bobunhulle 1361,1375 ADv
  • Bub(b)ehull 1230,1231 Cl
  • Bubbenhull 1371 ADiv
  • Bubbenyll 1458 Pat
  • Bubnell 1524 SR 1535 VE
  • Bubnell al. Bubenhulle 1651 FF

Etymology

'Bubba 's hill,' the name Bubba being well recorded in Old English. An attempt has been made (StudNP v, 15) to connect this and other names with a hypothetical OE  bubbe meaning 'eminence, hillock,' but no independent evidence has so far been adduced for any such topographical term at any stage in the history of English. An element bubban is found compounded with a word denoting a hill in Bupton (Db), Bubandun KCD 1298 and Bubnell (PN Db 79), but in these two cases and the Warwickshire name, it is in the gen. form, so that a pers. name is far more likely than a topographical term. In Bucknole (PN D 628) we have the form bubbe and either interpretation is possible from the point of view of form, but in Bibbear (PN D 93) a compound of burh , Bobbingworth (PN Ess 52), Bobbington (PN St 20) and Bubhurst (PN K 325) we have compounds with elements which, except possibly in the last case, have no connection with hills.

Places in the same Parish

Other OS name