Survey of English Place-Names

Historical Forms

• Dunkirk Farm 1802 Sheaf

• Dunkirk Nursery 1831 Bry

• Wood in Dunkirk 1839 TA

Etymology

, Dunkirk Farm 1802 Sheaf, Dunkirk Nursery 1831 Bry, Wood in Dunkirk 1839TA . Dunkirk is a hamlet in Lea , Capenhurst and Great Sutton townships , cf. Dunkirk Ho 194infra , Manor Fm infra . There is no early record of the place . It is probably named after Dunkirk ( Dunkerque ) in France ( cf. PNK 495 for analogies , also Dunkirk 1161 , 316 , 2 196 , 276 . The name - type is probably an allusion to a faraway place or distant colony or outpost with little permanence or no long history of settlement , but older examples might allude to the French place as a nest of anti - English pirates in Elizabethan times ( v . The Letters & Despatches of Richard Verstegan , ed . A . G . Petti ( Catholic Record Soc , lii , London 1959 ) 130 , 132 ) . Professor Sørensen observes that there are places in Denmark named after Dunkerque in France , e.g. Dynkarken , a st . n. in Århus . He points out that Dunkerque was an important shipping centre in olden days . This kind of mercantile and shipping allusion would be appropriate in ports and seaside towns , but not in lonely inland places . It may just be possible that some of the older examples of Dunkirk names in England could be allusions to recusant staging - posts in Elizabethan and Jacobean times . It is altogether most probable , however , that the Dunkirk type of p.n. in England often refers to the unfortunate historical associations of the French p.n. with English military and political disaster ; in 1558 the English lost Dunkirk to the French , in 1658 the French gave it to the English but Charles II sold the place back to them after the Restoration , and in 1793 it was attacked unsuccessfully and disastrously , with great loss of life , by the Duke of York .