Origin of the name Stafford ?

Landing place by a ford

Staith = landing place
Ford = ford (ie a land crossing)

Stathe/Ford I beleive is somewhere in there though I stand to be corrected. Ford being the watery bit and stathe being what you used to help yourself through/across it.

Go on historians, shoot me down!

Landing as in mooring - if that was not clear.

It's all about the river.

I was close......sort of!

RoyC said:

where/how did Stafford get its name?

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It is a curious phenomenon that what is, after all, the County town, has a woefully inadequate on-line, as 'twere, 'dictionary' or properly 'encyclopaedic' entry.

If you are interested in the proto-Saxon to Saxon origins of the Burgh then take a look at this - though it is a bit, well i say a bit when i mean a lot, niche.

It is all brought together in Professor Carver's opus magnus,The Birth Of A Borough, but at the best part of 60 (critic) squids it is, again, a spicy meatball to say the very least.

There is a copy of TBoaB in the library - reference only - which is, to be (un)fair to the people of Stafford (un)acceptably a reference only copy, after all a check-out-able copy would be entirely unreasonable - it being an extraordinarily expensive book, unworthy of unchecked distribution. Innit?

Also, if you want to know anything about the buildings/landmarks of our town, you could not do better than consult the various tomes of Roy Lewis, who has heroically done the leg-work in the archives of the Records Office - he is a genuine bona fide Local Hero.

If, on the other hand, you just want to know stuff about Stafford's (pre/medieval) history and can't be arsed to read/find out yourself, please feel free to ask me, and i'll do my very best to find out for you.

Very much do i dig this shizzle - it will be a pleasure, not a chore...

I would have assumed that somebody with the name Stafford got it from an association with the place, rather than vice versa..

Gramaisc said:

I would have assumed that somebody with the name Stafford got it from an association with the place, rather than vice versa..

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Indeed so. In fact, the de Staffords used to tell a story that Stafford was actually called 'Bethney' until it was renamed in honour of the Stafford family. Utter poppycock of course, the town pre-dated the Conquest by over 150 years (at the very least).

The Staffords named themselves after the town, decidedly not vice versa.

I'm gonna stick with the answer I gave a teacher once, It was a ford that you needed staffs to cross safely!

I thought that it was a combination of the postcode and a popular local van rental company.