What’s in a Name? Birminghams in the World
Birmingham is not the only city in the world to bear its name, sharing it with sixteen other towns and cities across North America. It was, however, the first ‘Birmingham’ in existence, with a history stretching back to the stone age.
Stone age artefacts suggest small seasonal communities occupying the land that would become Birmingham around 8000 BC. During the Roman Conquest of the British Isles in the first century, the thick forests of Birmingham proved a problem for the Roman forces. They installed a network of roads across the area and built a fortress, Metchley Fort, where Edgbaston is now, hoping to better control the area.
Birmingham acquired its name (or something similar) around the time of the Anglo-Saxons, during the early Middle Ages. It is likely that by the year 1000 the area was known by the old English Beormingahām. This name was made up of three different old English words: ham meant the ‘home’; of the ‘descendants’, Ingas. Beorma referred to the Beormingas, the tribe of people who probably occupied the area around the year 600. Beorma may have been the group’s leader when they settled the area or a legendary ancestor who was especially well-remembered. Beormingahām literally meant the home of the descendants of Beorma, or Beorma’s people. The spelling of the settlements name would change over time, appearing as Bermingham around 1166, and eventually settling on modern Birmingham not long after.
By the time of the settlement of North America, and the founding of many American towns and cities in the Victorian era, Birmingham had become a bustling industrial town. Settlers in North America sought to emulate the success of British Birmingham, and this became one of the defining reasons for settlements to be named after it in the New World.
Birmingham, Kentucky, was constructed and planned out from 1853-1860. In 1709 the British industrialist Abraham Darby had built the first blast furnace after his training in Birmingham, England. This had massively increased the potential scale for producing cast iron. It was this development that gave Birmingham its large Victorian iron industry, and the city’s Kentucky equivalent was named as such in the hopes its own budding iron industry might grow to the same scale.
This trend can be seen time and again. Birmingham, Michigan was originally planned by a man named Rosewell T. Merrill on August 25, 1836. His plans were named ‘Birmingham’ in the hope the intended city would once also become a significant industrial centre. Perhaps the largest settlement to share a name with the British city is Birmingham, Alabama. The city was founded on June 1, 1871, by the Elyton Land Company. The site of the new settlement was unique for its deposts of iron ore, coal and limestone all in close proximity, making it ideal as a centre of mining and industry. It was for this reason that the city’s founders named it In honour of Birmingham, England, hoping to share the good fortune that the Uk’s ‘workshop of the world’ had had it its history.