Settlement names ending in ‑bøl or ‑bølle
A number of settlement names ending in ‑bøl are found in Jutland, e.g. Oksbøl. In the islands east of Jutland, similar names end in ‑bølle, e.g. Skallebølle. The biggest concentration of bøl(le)-names is found in southern Denmark, especially in Sønderjylland and on Langeland.
The ending ‑bøl(le) goes back to the Old Danish ‑bøli, meaning 'dwelling, home, or farm.' The bøl(le)-names are formed with words and personal names similar to those found in the torp-names, e.g. the male personal name Knud in Knudsbøl. There are also wide spread examples of bøl(le)-names formed with adjectives, e.g. ny 'new' in Nybøl - corresponding names are often called Neble or Nebel, today.
The bøl(le)-names are a little younger than the torp-names, however; they date back to the last part of the Viking Age or the Middle Ages. This is underlined by the fact that only one Danish bøl(le)-name, Newball, has been found in the Danelaw - corresponding to the Danish Nybøl. All together, the language material found in the bøl(le)-names is younger than that found in the torp-names.
Pitfalls
This overview of the most important Danish settlement names, provides a tool to place names in time. For instance it is now possible to ascertain that Hvessinge must be hundreds of years older than Glostrup although Hvessinge actually is a part of Glostup today.
However, many place names have a form in present time that does not immediately reveal from which words the name was originally formed. Some of these corrupt names look like other name types, and some have passed through independent changes. By examining the oldest written sources, it is often possible to see from which endings those names were formed originally.
Examples of this are Grænge on Lolland, which is an inge-name, and Klinting in Vestern Jutland, which is an um-name. Further to that Maglemer on Lolland is a tved-name, Gislev on Funen is originally formed from one word, and Græsted in Northern Zealand originally ended in ‑holt. In other words, a place name is never sure to consist of the words immediately obvious from the present day spelling.