Column: What's in a name? Plenty, if you delve a little deeper!

Names are fascinating and important. They are given to people and places; sometimes places are named after people and people after places. For example: take a name from a building, road sign, or plaque in the town and with a little bit of research, you could be absorbed by the lives of those people synonymous with our town whose footprints still surround us many years later.
Quilt, Kettering.
Left to right: Susie Corke and Monica Ozdemir with one on Susie's quilts.
Thursday, 17 May 2007Quilt, Kettering.
Left to right: Susie Corke and Monica Ozdemir with one on Susie's quilts.
Thursday, 17 May 2007
Quilt, Kettering. Left to right: Susie Corke and Monica Ozdemir with one on Susie's quilts. Thursday, 17 May 2007

Names often evolve over the years, for example the old Anglo-Saxon name of our own town “Kettering” was originally “Cytringan”. The meaning is: a tribe or clan of cottars. A sort of club, according to F.W. Bull’s History of Kettering.

Kettering in Jamaica is named after our town. It is the birthplace of William Knibb, a Baptist missionary and emancipator of slaves, who went to live in Jamaica.

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Kettering’s sister city in Ohio, America, is named after the American inventor Charles F Kettering.

Some names get lost in time. Take Henry Gotch School for example, this is now Kettering Science Academy. Montagu School was renamed the Buccleuch Academy, but still has the connection to the same family of Boughton House.

With an increase in population comes new homes. The society was approached to name new roads for the Westhill development. Together with the Kettering and District Arts Society, the streets were named in honour of prominent local women artists.

For Hanwood Park, on the east side of Kettering the society took inspiration from Kettering town centre. We suggested the names of some 35 businesses who influenced the town.

If you may be inspired to research names, people and places that have been mentioned, why not visit Kettering Library?

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