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.

Tagwell Lane

Early-attested site in the Parish of Droitwich

Historical Forms

  • Tagwall spring 1456 VCHiii.79
  • Taggewell 17th Nash 18th

Etymology

There can be little doubt that here and in Tagg Barn in Chaddesley Corbett supra 238, also in Taggemere in Bishampton (Nash), we have the word tag used in the west and south-west for a sheep, apparently a variation of the more usual tegg .Hitherto the form tag has only been known from modern dialect, but the forms here given show that tagge was already in use in the 13th cent. and suggests that the two forms teg and tag go back to an OE  tacga , teg being a common dialectal development of a to e . Cf. Zachrisson in Englische Studien lix. 353. For the name we may compare Sw  tacka , 'ewe, sheep.'