User:Senra/Ely toponymy

The place-name Ely
The name of Ely has always been recognized as difficult by place-name scholars, and the origin and meaning of the name are still disputed. The earliest record of the name is in the Latin text of Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, where Bede wrote Elge. This apparently not a Latin name, and subsequent Latin texts nearly all used forms Elia, Eli, or Heli with inorganic H-. In Old English charters, and in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, the spelling is usually Elig.

Skeat derived the name Ely from what he called "O[ld] Northumbrian" ēlġē, meaning "district of eels". This uses a hypothetical word *ġē, which is not recorded in isolation but thought by some to be related to the modern German word Gau, meaning "district". The theory is that the name then developed a vowel to become ēliġē, and was afterwards re-interpreted to mean "eel island". This essentially is the explanation accepted by Reaney, Ekwall, Mills and Watts.

But difficulties remain. Bailey, in his discussion of ġē names, has pointed out that Ely would be anomalous if really from ēlġē "eel district", being remote from the areas where possible examples of ġē names occur, and moreover, there is no parallel for the use of a fish-name in compounds with ġē. More seriously, the usual English spelling remains Elig, even in the dative case-form used after many prepositions, where Elige would be expected if the second element were īġ "island". This is in conflict with all the other island names which surround Ely. Thus, the etymology is still considered uncertain by some toponymists.