English Place-Name Society

The English Place-Name Society (EPNS) is a learned society concerned with toponomastics and the toponymy of England, in other words, the study of place-names (toponyms).

Its scholars aim to explain the origin and history of the names they study, taking into account factors such as the meaning of the elements out of which they were created (whether from the principal endemic tongues Old English, early Welsh, Danish, Norwegian, Cornish, Latin, Norman French – or others); the topography, geology and ecology of the places bearing the names; and the general and local history and culture of England.