Celtic Place-Name Explainer
See what Irish, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Cornish, Breton and Manx place names mean, how to say them, and where they are.
339 place names
from ton “pasture”, yr “the” and gefail “forge”
“hospital of Ystwyth”
from ystwyth, “flexible”
Common place-name elements
Many names are built from a few common words. Pick one to see every place that uses it.
- llan · church, parish (26)
- aber · river mouth, confluence (16)
- caer · fort (9)
- cill · church (8)
- porth · port, harbour, cove (8)
- baile · town, settlement (7)
- pont · bridge (7)
- dún · fort (6)
- pen · head, top, end (6)
- áth · ford (5)
- tref · town (5)
- droichead · bridge (4)
- inis · island (4)
- ros · wood; headland (4)
- cwm · valley (4)
- tŷ · house (4)
- dùn · fort, fortress (4)
- ceann · head, headland (3)
- cúige · province (3)
- mainistir · monastery, abbey (3)
- castell · castle (3)
- coed · wood, forest, trees (3)
- din · fort, stronghold (3)
- dôl · meadow (3)
Go deeper than the map
blas. teaches the language behind the places: vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. Free to start.
Meanings and glosses are adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0) and the other sources cited on each page. Map and area data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).