Survey of English Place-Names

Historical Forms

• Torp 1203 Cur 1220 MHW

• Thorp 1260,1272 Cur 1285,1330 FA

• Thorp iuxta Brocton 1285 ib

• Thorpe 1346 Pat

• Thorpe iuxta Browgton 1539 MinAccts

• Prymesthorp 1316 FA

• Primethorpe 1575,1622 LeicW

• Prymethorp(e) 1601,1614 Ipm 1637 Fine

Etymology

'The outlying farmstead', later associated with Prim, v. þorp . The Torp 1086 DB of folio 234b is usually identified with Primethorpe (as Stenton VCHL 1326, Morgan DB Leics. 19.3 and Ekwall DEPN 374), but Elmesthorpe may well be its preferred identification. This Torp was held TRE by one Aelmer who may be the Æðelmǣr (> Æilmer , v. Feilitzen 184) whose name appears compounded in Elmesthorpe in that part of the Guthlaxton Wapentake which was later incorporated in Sparkenhoe Hundred. Whether the Prim of the later Primethorpe is an OE masc. pers.n. (the name recorded as that of a moneyer in the reign of Eadmund (939–46) and of Edgar (959–75)) or is a ContGerm masc. pers.n. as suggested by Smart, is uncertain, v. Veronica Smart, 'Economic migrants? Continental moneyers' names on the tenth-century English coinage', Nomina 32 (2009), 121 and 150. Less likely is a feudal surn. affix Prime (from OFr  prim (e ) 'excellent, fine') in the style of Herringthorpe, YW 1185, and Perlethorpe, Nt 91.