List of United Kingdom county name etymologies

This toponymical list of counties of the United Kingdom is a list of the origins of the names of counties of the United Kingdom. For England and Wales it includes ancient and contemporary ceremonial counties, but excludes those English unitary authorities that are not ceremonial counties.

Background
Throughout the histories of the four countries of the United Kingdom, a variety of languages have been used to name places. These languages were often used in parallel with each other. As a result, it is often difficult to assess the genuine etymology of a placename, hence some of the entries below are assigned more than one meaning, depending on which language was used to originally give the place its name. One of the most common words used in county names in the United Kingdom is the suffix shire. This is a West Saxon word meaning share/division.