'I sauh a tour on a toft, tryelyche i-maket': on Place-Names n -tofi, -tote arrd -tobhta from Shetland to the Isle of Man Peder Gammeltoft UniversitY of CoPenhagen For someone recently introduced to the study of place-names of Scandi- navian origin in the British Isles, it may well seem that the range of types used for coining new place-names was largely restricted to the habitative elements bj, borp, pveit, bdlstadr, stadir utd setrls@tr. This is of course not true, but research has to a large extent focused on these six place-name types, partly because they all occur in large numbers, and not least because these types have been used with the aim of determining the nationality of the Scandinavian settlers. It would appear that the first three place-name elements, bi, porp and pveit, tended to be used by Danish settlers, whereas b6lstadr, stadir and setrls@tr instead found favour among Norwegian namers. The aim of determining the nationality of the Scandinavian settlers has certainly loomed large in the discussions over the years, and it is perhaps for this reason that the place-name eleme* toft, Old Norse (oN) topt, f .,hx rarely been focused on. Being found in both Denmark and Norway, as well as in large numbers in Sweden, it is certainly not an ideal place-name type on which to construct theories about the nationality of the Scandinavian settlers. This does not mean, however, that ,o/? is not an interesting place-name element. Not only is it found tkoughout Norway, Sweden and Denmark, it also occurs in all areas of Scandinavian Viking-Age colonial activity: Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Scotland, England and Normandy. According to Kulturhistoisk tet<sikon for nordisk middelalder, ovet 1,500 names containing the element rol exist or have been known to exist.r The same work also states that the number of place-names in Great Britain containing Scandinavian /o.f amounts to about 220, so the name type 1 Kulturhistorisk tel<sikon for nordisk middelaaer, xviii (Copenhagen, 1974), 427-3t.