Survey of English Place-Names

Etymology

Dankton Barn. In the neighbourhood of Sompting ran the boundary which is called dentunninga gemære (BCS 961), the boundary of a place which, as Round pointed out in the VCH (i. 449 n. 1), must be the manor of Dentun in Domesday.The bounds of dentun are mentioned between those of Goombes and Sompting and must have been very near the present Dankton Barn. The suggestion may be hazarded that that was the site of Dentun and that the name records it. Dankton lies in a small valley. There may have been alternative names Denetun and Deningatun for the place in OE times. Such alternative forms with and without ing were noted for Sodington and Sinton (PN Wo 60, 128). Deningatun might well develop in Sussex to a later form Dankton with ME  dane for dene as noted in Danhill supra 181 and Danehill infra 335.