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.

Clapham

Major Settlement in the Parish of Clapham

Historical Forms

  • Cloppham 1060 KCD809 14th BM 1253 ADiv 1402
  • Clopeham 1086 DB
  • Clopham 1163,1167 P 1220 LS 1535 VE
  • Clapham 1247 Ass 1579 ADv
  • Cloppham 1253 BM 1582 ADv
  • Clappam(e) 1542 Ipm 1545 ADvi
  • Clappham 1582 ADv
  • Clopham 17th BHRSviii.145

Etymology

One cannot get much further with this name than Skeat's suggestion that the first element is a lost OE  word allied to the Middle Danish klop , 'stub, stump.' As this element is not dealt with in EPN it may be well to set forth in full the evidence for its presence in English p.n. so far as it has been gathered. The places in question, with the earliest forms noted, are Clapham (Sr), BCS 558 Cloppaham , (Sx) DB Clopeham , Clapton (Nth) BCS 1061 Cloptun , (Mx) 1345 Clopton , Clopton (Wa) KCD 666 Cloptun , (Berks) 1316 Clopton , (C) DB Cloptun , (Sf) DB Clopetuna , Clapcote (Berks)DB Clopcote , (W) 1428 Clopcote and Clophill infra 146. In addition we must take account of the unidentified clopæcer and clophyrst (BCS 1282) and clophangra (ib. 508). On the topographical side it may be noted that two of these last three compounds favour the association of clop with woods. Apart from this, however, examination of the sites of the places in question has not proved helpful, and is hardly likely to, considering the suggested meaning of the term.In the case of the two Claphams and one of the Cloptons we have forms which suggest the possibility of a genitive plural of the word in question, in the others we seem to have a compound of the ordinary type. For Clapham (Sr) Skeat suggests the meaning 'enclosure of stubs or stubby ground,' but if that were the sense we should have expected an OE  form in hamm and traces of later hom (m ). Such forms are not found for either of the Claphams. Alternatively we are driven back on the ordinary ham and must interpret the name as 'homestead of the stumps,' i.e. one marked by such, though genitive plural compounds of this type do not seem natural. The other names would furnish less difficulty, they might be interpreted as tun or cot by some prominent stump of a tree or even 'made of logs,' but really we are very much in the dark as to the meaning of these names. Ritter (128) would connect these names with a Germanic *kluppa - 'rock' and compares Germ. Klopf , Klopp as farm-names, but the interpretation would still remain difficult, v. Addenda.

It will be noted that these names show a tendency to unrounding of o to a and that in some of them the process has been fully carried out (cf. EDG §83 and Wyld, Colloquial English , 240).Attempts have been made to associate these names with Clapham (Y), but, from DB Clapeham onwards, this name has uniformly a , and it must rather be connected with the pers. name Clapa recorded in Osgod Clapa .

Places in the same Parish

None