Tit
Tit - OE mase, *tit/titel - ON titlingr, meisingr, colmase, frecmase, hicemase, spicmase
This is perhaps one of the most delightful of all bird families to appear in place names, for the reason that tits are so small and constantly on the move (that is, barely ever in just one place!) they seem like unlikely place inspirations. That they are is quite wonderful. Indeed, perhaps it their continual roving motion and balletic delicacy that appeals to a sense of place.
The standard and generic tit-family name was mase, meaning quite simply ‘small thing’, from where we get ‘(tit)mouse’ by the end of the Middle Ages (titemose), a tautologous name because tite (as in teat) also means ‘little thing’. We do actually have a range of mase names (given above) recorded in the early glossaries, but their meaning is unclear (apart from colmase, which we still have) and it is impossible to assign them to particular species. Only mase (and possibly *tit) appears in place-names, as is expected—the single-syllabled generic easily combined with the topographical suffix.
A number of the ‘tit’ names below (asterisked) are listed very hesitantly, on the basis that it has been suggested that Tidcombe and Titley below may record early forms of the bird name (otherwise unrecorded), and if this is the case than a number of other names containing ‘tit’ forms may also be worth considering. The matter is complicated by the uncertainty of various ‘tit’-root personal names which also surmised on the basis of place-name evidence.
Masongill (Yorks)
Tidcombe (Wilts)*
Titley (Hants)
Tittandun (lost, Worcs)*
Titgrave (lost, Hants)*
Tittenley (Ches)
Tits appear in charters relating to the following places: Bucklebury, Berks (10th cen.).
Sources (see ‘About’ page for the full bibliography): Watts, Cambridge Dictionary; Ekwall, Oxford Dictionary; epns.nottingham.ac.uk; Gelling and Cole, Landscape of Place-Names; landscape.org.uk.