Survey of English Place-Names

Historical Forms

• Earesbyrig 11th Heming

• Eresbyrie 1086 DB

• Heresbyria c.1086 EveB 1190

• Alesberga c.1086 EveA 1190

• Esebyre, Esebire 1240 WoP 1275 Ass

• Eselbyre 1240 WoP

• Eylesbyri 1255 Ass

• Estebury 1270 LibPens

• Esbire 1275 FF

• Essburi, Esburie 1316 Ipm 1616 QSR

• Esbury al. Estbury al. Aylesbury 1486 Pat 1497 Ipm

• Eastbury 1656 FF

Etymology

The explanation of this name is difficult. From the first form and from the lost Earesbroca in Arley (Dugd. vi. 1445) it would seem that there may have been an OE  pers. name Ēar or Ēare , which may possibly be the source of the OE  Ere found as that of a moneyer of Athelstan, though it is more likely that this last is a pet-form of such a name as Erewine . The possibility of Ear - (from earlier Germanic Aur -) as a pers. name element is made probable by names in Germany and Scandinavia.Förstemann (PN 210–1) gives several names in Aur -, Or -, which he does not seriously attempt to explain. Amongst them perhaps the most important is the well-established OGer  pers. name Aurivandal . This corresponds to the ON  mythological name Qrvandill and possibly to the OE  ēarendel , used, not as a pers. name, but of a 'ray of light, dawn.' In Old Norse there are several mythological names beginning with Aur -, but it does not seem ever to be used as an element in names given to historical personages. Tacitus (Germania c. 8) also gives Aurinnia as the name of a German prophetess. This may be a derivative of the same stem, and indeed, considering the mythological associations of many of these names and words in Aur -, Ear - such a suggestion seems very probable. This element may be the same as the ON  Aurr , a mythological name for Earth itself (originally meaning 'wet clay, loam') and OE  ear , the name of one of the Runic letters in the OE alphabet, which probably denotes 'earth' (cf. Earith in PN BedsHu 205).Professor Tolkien, taking into consideration the use of OE  ēarendel as a personification for Lucifer, and the sense of ON  Qrvandils tá , suggests that the first element should rather be associated with IndoGer aus -, 'light.' It is even possible that at an early date this element was used to form compound pers. names in England. The early charters of Abingdon Abbey refer to a place rendered in different documents Æaromundeslee , Earmundeslea , Earmundeslæh , Ærmundelea . In the last, a charter of 942, which is probably genuine, it is stated that the name of the place was æt Æppeltune . It is now Appleton in North Berkshire. The earlier charters are all spurious as they stand but may in part be founded upon early material. They are all derived from the Historia Monasterii de Abingdon (12th cent. MS). See further, Introd. xxi.

Assuming the existence of such a name in OE, probably of great antiquity, we can explain the later history of the name as follows. Eares would become Æres , Eres . Then alternative forms arose. On the one hand, by a common process of dissimilation (cf. IPN 106), Eresbiry became Elesbiry or, with occasional metathesis, Eselbiry . On the other hand, the r was often lost from the consonant group rsb giving rise to a form Es (e )biry . By a natural process of folk-etymology this was associated with ME  este or 'east.' Hence 'burh of Ear(e).'