| dc.description.abstract | When dealing with the place-names of a region, it is striking to see the great variety of words and terms found in the material. Any natural or manmade feature so to speak, any field of human activity may be represented. Name researchers, historians, as well as other scholars interested in onomastics, have repeatedly highlighted place-names as a source for learning about the interaction between man and his surroundings. Among the large number of semantic categories represented in place-names, I will look into the one where the context is occupations (or occupational activities, including trades and professions), based on material from two Norwegian districts (see map below). Preliminary examples are Munkerud ‘the monk’s clearing’, cf. English Monkton, and Prestedalen ‘the priest’s valley’, cf. English Priestcliffe (Gelling 1984: 136). In most cases the occupational term stands as specific (first element) in compound place-names, whereas a topographical word makes out the generic (last element), for example Lensmannsstølen, from lensmann ‘sheriff’ and støl ‘summer farm’. The relationship between the profession in question and the generic is of various kinds, for instance performance of a particular occupation at a certain place, an individual’s proprietorship of that occupation, or an incident related to a person having that occupation. Further examples are Skrivargarden ‘the farmstead of the district court judge’, Falkafangarnuten ‘the hill where the falconer operates’.
In some names we find an aspect of irony, for instance in Hovmannen, from hovmann ‘clerk of the court’, ‘the king’s deputy’. This position as the king’s deputy was very unpopular among the rural population. In this case the name refers to a rock which the name givers have associated with a “hovmann”. By studying this group of names, we can find out more about the social status of the occupations in question. | en_US |