Thanks David and all the others that answered. Seamus found this on the Hants CC Website "Hampshire" is often abbreviated in written form to "Hants" and which sometimes gives rise to puzzlement. The abbreviated form is derived from the Old English Hantum plus Scir (meaning a district governed from the settlement now known as Southampton) and the Anglo-Saxons called it Hamtunschire. At the time of the Domesday Book (1086) this was compressed to Hantescire." Chris -----Original Message----- From: David DOWD [mailto:david.dowd@tesco.net] Sent: 27 November 2004 13:12 To: Chris & Caroline Subject: Re: [HantsLife] Origin of county name Dear List, the Normans, speaking a (poor) version of French, had great difficulty with Anglo-Saxon names and wrote Hampshire as Hantescire in 1088 - which they found easier to pronounce (lots of other names were similarly garbled), and it is the abbreviation of the latter which we use today since documents for the next four centuries were usually written in either French or Latin. Regards, David -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.289 / Virus Database: 265.4.2 - Release Date: 24/11/2004