SR - Sigel-

[Timothy A. McDaniel]

I was going thru some heraldic precedents and ran across this:

    [Sigelhundas] Some commenters wondered whether the name's meaning
    [``sun-dogs''] was reasonable, but given such Anglo-Saxon terms as
    sigelwaras ``sun-men'' (their term for Ethiopians), we saw no
    reason not to accept the construction.  The Saxons probably would
    have used the term to refer to African dogs, not to the refraction
    of sunlight by ice crystals in the upper atmosphere, but I suspect
    the submitters know that [dogs were used in the armory].  (Shire
    of Sigelhundas, July, 1992, pg. 2)

Anyone for a "Sigel-" ("sun") name?  Sigelland?  I combine it below
with each of the suffixes from Johnson, _Place Names of England and
Wales_, pp. 46-62.  Some of these are not Old English-based, but I
don't think that's necessarily a problem (Westminster is Germanic +
Latin).  Most of these are the modern forms, not Old English.

   Sigelbage - brook
   Sigelig - watery place, island, peninsula
   Sigelbach - brook, stream
   Sigelburn - spring, fountain, brook, rivulet
   Sigelburg
   Sigelby - dwelling, village
   Sigelcester - cap, fortification
   Sigelcumb - (deep) valley
   Sigeldael (Sun Valley!  Cool!)
   Sigelden - deep valley
   Sigelfell - mountain, hill
   Sigelford
   Sigelgil - deep glen
   Sigelhall - palace / nook, corner, flat meadow by a river, haugh
   Sigelham - two root words, one meaning pasture and the other
       meaning homestead.  "This is one of our very commonest endings,
       often clipped down into -am (cf. Cheam) or more rarely into
       -um, as in Bilsum, Gloucester, c. 955 Billesham; but in the
       north largely replaced by the Norse -by, except in
       Northumberland, where -ham is common and -by non-existent."
       (Followed by cautions that -am may just represent the genitive
       or other simple locative.)
   Sigelhamptun - home town
   Sigelhop(e) - enclosed land, waste land
   Sigelhow - mound, cairn
   -ing - impossible; only used with a personal name
   Sigelleah - a bit of cultivated ground, a meadow, a lea
   Sigellow - hill, burial-ground
   Sigelminster
   Sigelor - two words: margin, bank, shore; border, margin, seashore,
       river-bank
   Sigelthorp - farm, hamlet, village
   Sigelthwaite - a piece of land, a paddock
   Sigelton
   Sigelworth - open space, piece of land, holding, farm, estate
   Sigelwic - dwelling, village
   Sigelwith - wood

I list all the suffixes so you can try plugging in your own ideas
instead of "Sigel".  For example, I'm sure "-fell" would be popular,
given its homonym and meaning.

There's a rather information-dense aritcle on English placenames at
    http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/engplnam.html

Daniel "*my* homo nym is Rod Steele" de Lincolia
-- 
Tim McDaniel (home); Reply-To: tmcd at crl.com; 
    if that fail, tmcd at austin.ibm.com is my work address.
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