Beckenham

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A suburban town in the London Borough of Bromley in south-east England, known for its shops and green spaces
2. A residential town lying in the south-eastern part of Greater London, within the borough of Bromley
3. A district town in south-east England that forms part of the wider London area and sits within Bromley borough

Etymology: Beckenham is a town in south-east London, and its name is Old English in origin. It is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Bacheham" or similar, and the name is generally taken to mean "homestead or village of Bacca's people" (the "-ham" element is the common Old English word for an estate or settlement, and "Bacca" is a personal name). Because the name combines a personal name with "-ham," it belongs to a large group of English place names, many in the south and east, that follow this pattern. The town's name is a proper noun, so it has no sense of its own beyond the place, but the same "-ham" ending appears across England in names such as Gillingham and Chingford's neighbours in Essex and Kent. Those names show how common this type of settlement name was in Anglo-Saxon England.