Origin of The Name
The name Wirral occurs in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as Wirheal, literally "myrtle-corner", from the Old English wir, a myrtle tree, and heal, an angle, corner or slope. It is supposed that the land was once overgrown with bog myrtle, a plant no longer found in the area but plentiful around Formby, to which Wirral would once have provided a similar habitat. The name was given to the Hundred of Wirral around the 8th century. In the Domesday Book and shortly afterwards, the name of the hundred changed to the Hundred of Wilaveston, which later became Willaston.
Read more about this topic: Wirral Peninsula
Famous quotes containing the words the name, origin of and/or origin:
“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.”
—Bible: Hebrew Exodus, 20:7.
The third commandment.
“For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Our theism is the purification of the human mind. Man can paint, or make, or think nothing but man. He believes that the great material elements had their origin from his thought.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)