Elvendon is a small settlement in Oxfordshire and the Chiltern Hills, near Goring-on-Thames. It includes the grade II listed building Elvendon Priory.
Etymology
The first element of the name is agreed to be the word
elf, either in singular or plural form.
[Alaric Hall, ' Are there any Elves in Anglo-Saxon Place-Names?', Nomina: Journal of the Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland, 29 (2006), 61-80 (p. 76).][Ann Cole, 'Two Chiltern Place-names Reconsidered: Elvendon and Misbourne', Journal of the English Place-name Society, 50 (2018), 65-74.] The second element was long thought to derive from
Old English dūn 'hill', but reanalysis of the primary evidence revealed that the second element is from Old English denu 'valley'. Thus at the time when it was coined, the name meant 'elves' valley' or something like it.
