Survey of English Place-Names

Etymology

In the text of Domesday (VCH i. 307) Abbot Walter is said to have proved his right to certain land in Bengeworth in a court of four shires held at Ildeberga . In the account of this suit given in the Chronicle of Evesham (97) the place is called Gildeneberga (the form is Gildenberga in a 12th cent. document quoted ib . Introd. xlviii.), and Dr Round is doubtless right in identifying the place with the Gildbeorh (969) of the bounds of Evenlode (BCS 1238) where, aptly enough, it is mentioned just before the four stones which preceded the present Four Shire Stone. From the context in which this name is found and from its alternative forms there is no doubt that we must take the first element as the OE  gild , 'guild, association,' in the one case, and as gildena , gen. pl. of gilda , 'a member of a guild,' in the other.Other pre-Conquest examples of this element are to be found in Gildenebrigge in 1045 (Thorpe 572), now Ealing Bridge in Harlow (Ess), a lost Gildenebrige in Hodsock (Nt) and a lost Gildeneburgh in Wilts or Dorset (BCS 664, late copy). The Nf hundred of Guiltcross, DB Gildecros , is a further example of the association between guild and hundred. Found only in post- Conquest documents we have Gilcote (So), DBGildenecote , Gilmorton (Lei), DBMortone , E 1 Ipm Guldenemorton , 1344 Ch Gildemorton , Moreton Pinkney (Nth), DBMortone , E 2 Ipm Gildenemorton , Guilden Morden (C), DBMordune , 1205 P, 1255 BM Geldenemordon , 1284 FA Gylden Mordene , 1317 BM Guldemorden , 1377 Ch Gildenmordene , Guilden Sutton (Ch), DBSudtone , 1303 Chamberlain's Accts Guldunsutton (p), n.d. AD viGuldensutton , an unidentified Ildenebrugge in the 1275 SR for Little Witley (Wo) and Gildwelle in Mathon (AOMB 61). It is impossible now to determine just what the relation of these guildsmen was to the place in which their name is found (for the wide prevalence of gilds among the Anglo-Saxons see Liebermann, Gesetze der Angelsachsen , ii. I, 445 s.v. genossenschaft and Gross, Gild Merchant , i. 174 f). In some cases, as in that with which we are now primarily dealing, it must refer to an actual meeting of such at the place in question. In others, and this applies specially to those which are of comparatively late origin, it probably denotes that the guild or its members had certain beneficiary interests in the land so named or had constructed the bridge in question. Of this latter type doubtless is the suffix Gilden or Gildon found added at times to the forms for Shelsley Walsh in this county (v. supra 78).This must refer to the interest of some guild in the manor.

The variant forms of the initial sound of names with this element are explained in the NED s. v. guild . There was a variation between forms with initial g and initial y .