The story
- Proto-Brythonic · derived from*eglēs“church”
- Old English · inherited from*Eccles
- Middle English · inherited fromEccles
- English todayEccles
From Middle English Eccles, from Old English *Eccles, borrowed from pre-Proto-Brythonic *eglēs (“church”), whence Proto-Brythonic *egluɨs. The sound change *ē > *uɨ is regular in Proto-Brythonic, but had evidently not yet occurred when place-name instances of *eglēs in the north were being borrowed into Old English; Jackson (1953) dates this change to the late 7th century. *g > *k is regular assuming borrowing into Old English, which did not have intervocalic /g/ except after a nasal. A number of toponyms in northern Britain are composed of Eccles plus a term of English origin, e.g. Eccleston (+ -ton), Eccleshill (+ hill). Doublet of ecclesia.
Words from the same roots
Old English*Eccles all →
Eccleshall
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.