Toponymy
Dorset derives its name from the county town of Dorchester. The Romans established the settlement in the 1st century and named it Durnovaria which was a Latinised version of a Brythonic word possibly meaning "place with fist-sized pebbles". The Saxons named the town Dornwaraceaster (the suffix "ceaster" being the Old English name for a Roman town) and Dornsæte came into use as the name for the inhabitants of the area from "Dorn"—a reduced form of Dornwaraceaster—and the Old English word "sæte" meaning people. It is first mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in AD 845 and in the 10th century the county's archaic name, "Dorseteschyre" (Dorsetshire), was first recorded.
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