Survey of English Place-Names

Etymology

, a popular name for new streets in the early 19th cent. Albion was an old poetic name for Britain , once thought to be based on Lat albus ' white ' , with reference to the colour of the southern coastal chalk cliffs . It occurs in Pliny as early as the 1st cent. A.D . : Albion ipsi nomen fuit cum Britanniae vocarentur omnes . Recent preference is for a name from a Brit stem * albio - meaning ' the land, the country ' , v. A . L . F . Rivet and Colin Smith , The Place - Names of Roman Britain , 247 – 8 .