You don’t have to go very far in Britain to find funny village names, nor on my own patch in the Cotswolds. One reason is that many names have evolved from ancient forms of English and other languages. Over time, they take on new meanings that bear no relation to their original designation.
For example, whereas Upper Slaughter and Lower Slaughter sound like villages you might encounter in a Hammer Horror film, they’re idyllic beauty spots, whose name derives from the Old English word “slohtre”, which means “wet land”. That meaning makes much more sense, given that they are set on the River Eye, and include a ford.
