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I believe it's an English surname meaning "farm by the willows", but certainly contains the Scandinavian suffix -by or rather -byr ...meaning "farm".
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i saw a documentary a year ago about the Vikings in Scotland and England and they came to the conclusion that one of the things that point out the presence of Vikings in Scotland and Vikings, i.e. they mixed with the population (whereas they used to think of the Vikings as plunderers who came and left immediately after), are those placenames with the suffix -by . I'm not sure, but i believe those places are all situated quite northern (above Leeds and such).
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Actually it's mostly north and east. An area once called East Angliterre was actually the Danelaw. In fact the Boston accent from Lincolnshire originates mostly from this area. It's why we in Boston pronounced the broad 'a' or 'ä' sound in such words as "bathroom" and "can't" which sound like the 'a' in "father" ...
But you're right about the -by ending such as Rugby, Derby, etc.
But you're right about the -by ending such as Rugby, Derby, etc.
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