Naming Shirehampton and the name Shirehampton

Using the example of the place-name Shirehampton in England, this article explores (1) the complications involved in understanding the history of a particularly difficult place-name (an etymological and philological question) and in the history of the naming of the place in question (an onomasiological question), (2) some practical consequences of different understandings of the place-name at different points in history (a historiographical question), and (3) the historical transfer of this name into other onomastic categories (a semasiological question and a culturally and theoretically interesting question). Some new understandings of the name and its history are proposed. The article can be taken as an object lesson in the lexical-semantic and phonological difficulties of historical onomastics (and therefore as academically routine), and also in the pleasures of travelling unexpected byways in the history of onomastics and in cultural history. It endeavours to affirm, by example, the case for historical onomastics as a discipline which ranges more widely than establishing the etymology of a name, and explores finally some issues of theoretical and methodological interest