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As York was a town in Roman times, its Celtic name is recorded in Roman sources (as Eboracum and Eburacum); after 400, Angles took over the area and adapted the name by folk etymology to Old English Eoforwīc or Eoforīc, which means "wild-boar town" or "rich in wild-boar".
The Latin Eboracum became Anglian Eoforwic in the 7th century: a compound of Eofor-, from the old name, and -wic, meaning "village", probably by conflation of the element Ebor-with a Germanic root *eburaz ('boar'); by the 7th century, the Old English for 'boar' had become eofor.
Jun 24, 2024 · The Norse Influence: Jorvik and the Kingdom of York. Eoforwic took on a new identity when the Viking invaders, known as the Norse, captured the town in AD 866. They established their own kingdom, known as Jorvik, which encompassed the area around York.
- Kelli Wheeler
Sep 5, 2023 · The Roman invasion of Britain, launched in AD 43, didn’t really touch this part of northern Britain until AD 71, when they established a military base they called Eboracum – today’s York. At that time, the region was inhabited by a Celtic tribal confederation called the Brigantes.
- Pragya Vohra
A history written 150 years later records how the Viking army ‘rebuilt the city of York, cultivated the land around it, and remained there’. Eoforwic had become Jorvik , and was soon transformed into the capital of a kingdom of the same name, roughly corresponding to Yorkshire today.
The York settlement was called Eoforwic, which suggests it was a place of some significance. The ‘wics’ were seemingly the most important commercial centres in each of the kingdoms – others were Lundenwic (London) and Gipeswic (Ipswich).
The modern name of York stems from its ninth-century Viking name Jorvik, which would appear to be a straight carry-through of the Anglic name Eoforwic, further distorted by the heavy accents of the Scandinavian occupying army.
