Why the names look unfamiliar
A map of Cornwall is full of names that do not look like English and do not look quite like Welsh or Breton either. Many of them come from the Cornish language, a Celtic language related to Welsh and Breton, which was the everyday speech of most people in Cornwall for centuries before English gradually took over. The names outlived the speakers. Farms, hamlets, coves and fields kept the words that earlier generations gave them, and those words are still on road signs today.
Reading these names is a little like reading a short sentence. Most are made of two or three small parts: a main word saying what kind of place it is, and a describing word saying which one. Once you know a handful of the main words, a surprising number of names start to make sense.
A caution first. Place name study is a careful, specialist field, and many meanings are uncertain. Names have been copied, misheard, respelled and reshaped over many centuries, often by clerks and mapmakers who did not speak Cornish. Treat any single translation in this guide, or on a souvenir, as a reasonable general reading rather than a certainty.
The word order is the reverse of English
In English we put the describing word first: “Red Hill”, “Little Farm”. In Cornish the main word usually comes first and the describing word follows. So a name that begins with a word for a farm or a headland is telling you what sort of place it is, and what comes after tells you more. If you read from left to right and expect the English pattern, you will often get the order backward.
Some names also mix the two systems. An older Cornish name may have an English word added later, or an English-looking ending may sit on a Cornish beginning. Names like these are signs of the long overlap between the two languages.
Common building blocks
The table gives widely cited general meanings. Spellings vary, and the same word can look different in different names.
| Element | General meaning | Names that begin with it |
|---|---|---|
| Tre | farm, homestead, settlement | Tregony, Trelissick |
| Pol | pool, pond | Polruan, Polperro |
| Pen | head, end, headland | Penzance, Penryn |
| Porth | cove, harbor, landing place | Porthcurno, Porthleven |
| Lan | an enclosure, often an early church site | Lanivet, Lanhydrock |
| Chy | house | Chyandour |
| Carn | rock pile, rocky outcrop | Carn Brea |
| Nans | valley | various small valleys |
| Ros | moor, heath, or promontory | various |
| Wheal | a mine working | many mine names |
The three best known, Tre, Pol and Pen, are often quoted together in an old rhyme that says you can tell a Cornishman by them. The rhyme is a saying rather than a rule, and there are plenty of Cornish people with other kinds of names, but it shows how familiar these prefixes are. They get a closer look in their own article on name prefixes.
Describing words: size, color and shape
After the main word, a describing word often adds detail. Some turn up again and again:
- Words for small and large, which appear in forms such as vean and veor (spellings vary). A pair of neighboring farms might be told apart this way.
- Color words, such as du for black, gwyn or wyn for white, and ruth for red. These can describe soil, rock, vegetation or water.
- Words for position, such as “upper” and “lower”, which sometimes survive in the English “Higher” and “Lower” attached to farm names.
- Plant, animal and tree words, and sometimes a personal name, so that a farm could be named after a person who once held it.
When a name seems to include a personal name, be careful. Many of these readings are guesses based on early records, and the supposed person is usually otherwise unknown.
Water, coast and moor
Cornwall’s geography leaves its mark. Names around the coast often begin with words for coves, headlands and landing places, which fits a long coastline cut by creeks. On the Cornish coast you will find many names that begin with Porth or Pen, and the shape of the land often matches the meaning when you look at it. Inland, words for moors, valleys and rocky outcrops fit the rough upland landscape, and names on Bodmin Moor tend to reflect that. Names along Cornish estuaries often refer to the water, the crossing point or the creek.
The Lizard Peninsula and the far west have their own cluster of distinctive names, and in some places the Cornish ones are noticeably thicker on the ground than in the east, where English influence came earlier.
Names from the saints
A large group of names come from early Christian saints, many of whom are not widely known beyond Cornwall. A “Lan” name often marks an early church enclosure, and many “St” names mark the site of a church or community dedicated to a holy person. The saint behind a place name may be Cornish, Irish, Welsh or Breton, and some of them are only known through local tradition. Saint Piran is the one most people recognize. The reasons behind this pattern are explored in the article on saints place names.
Mining and later English names
Mining left its own layer. “Wheal” names, used for mine workings, are common across the old mining districts, as are English names added later for shafts and engine houses, and these sit comfortably beside much older farm names. English endings, such as those meaning “town”, “valley” or “ford”, also appear, especially toward the east. Many names are hybrids, with a Cornish element and an English one side by side.
A simple method for decoding a name
- Look for a recognizable first element such as Tre, Pol, Pen, Porth or Lan.
- Treat what follows as the describing part, and check whether it looks like a color, size, plant, animal or position.
- Compare the name with the landscape. A name meaning “pool” should sit near water, and a “headland” name should sit on high ground jutting out.
- Be wary of the spelling. The modern form may be far from the original, and early recorded forms are what specialists rely on.
- Remember that popular explanations are often wrong. A story that sounds neat, or a meaning printed on a mug, is not evidence.
Why the answers are not always clear
Several things get in the way. Spelling was not fixed for most of the period when these names were recorded. Names were passed on by ear, and official records were often written by people unfamiliar with the sounds. Some names were adjusted to look more like English words, which can create misleading meanings. And since the Cornish language went through a long decline before its modern language revival, some older word meanings have to be reconstructed from related Celtic languages and from surviving texts.
None of this should put a reader off. Place names are one of the most visible links to the Cornish language, and even a rough understanding of the main elements makes a drive through the countryside more interesting. The Cornish place names themselves, and what they say about daily life centuries ago, remain a very good reason to look up from the road and read the signs.