• Location
• Historical places and writing
• Units and statistics
• Related websites
• Place names

Names from historical writing:

The following appear as names for Sunderland. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

• The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
• Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
• References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.

---

Names for administrative units:

These names were used for units associated with Sunderland. Click on the links for details of the units and their names:

Name	Unit Type	Source
00CM	District/Unitary Authority	Census of Population (2001 Key Statistics)
E110264	Local Government District (MB/CB)
EAST SUNDERLAND	Registration sub-District	Registrar General, Decennial Supplement (HM Stationery Office)
NORTH SUNDERLAND	Constituency (BCon)	Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
SOUTH SUNDERLAND	Constituency (BCon)	Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
SUNDERLAND	1841 Occupation reporting area	1841 Census of Great Britain, Table [1], 'Occupation Abstract'.
	Ancient District (AD_Town/Borough)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 663.
	Constituency (PBCon)	Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
	District/Unitary Authority	Census of Population (2001 Key Statistics)
	Ecclesiastical Parish (EP)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 116.
	Local Government District (MB/CB)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 663.
	Local Government District (RD)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 667.
	Parish-level Unit (AP/PA/CP)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 116.
	Poor Law Union/Reg. District (RegD/PLU)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 664.
	Registration sub-District	Registrar General, Decennial Supplement (HM Stationery Office)
	Sanitary District (USD)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 665.
	Sanitary District (RSD)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 665.
	Urban Labour Market	Great Britain Historical GIS Project
SUNDERLAND AND DISTRICT	Urban Labour Market	Ministry of Labour, Labour Gazette (H.M.S.O.)
SUNDERLAND CENTRAL	Constituency (BCon)	Boundary Commission for England, Fifith Periodical Report (London: H.M.S.O., 2009)
SUNDERLAND EAST	Registration sub-District	1911 Census of England and Wales, Table 5, 'Registration Counties, Districts and Sub-districts with their constituent civil parishes. - Urban or Rural District in which each parish is situated; Area; families or separate occupiers, and population, 1901 and 1911; and population enumerated in Institutions, large establishments, and on vessels, &c., 1911'.
SUNDERLAND NORTH	Constituency (BCon)	Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
	Registration sub-District	1911 Census of England and Wales, Table 5, 'Registration Counties, Districts and Sub-districts with their constituent civil parishes. - Urban or Rural District in which each parish is situated; Area; families or separate occupiers, and population, 1901 and 1911; and population enumerated in Institutions, large establishments, and on vessels, &c., 1911'.
SUNDERLAND PALLION SOUTHWCK AND WASHINGTON	Urban Labour Market	Ministry of Labour, Labour Gazette (H.M.S.O.)
SUNDERLAND PALLION SOUTHWCK AND WASHINGTON STATION	Urban Labour Market	Ministry of Labour, Labour Gazette (H.M.S.O.)
SUNDERLAND SEAHAM AND HOUGHTON LE SPRING	Urban Labour Market	Ministry of Labour, Labour Gazette (H.M.S.O.)
SUNDERLAND SEAHAM AND HOUGHTON LE SPRING AND DISTRICT	Urban Labour Market	Ministry of Labour, Labour Gazette (H.M.S.O.)
SUNDERLAND SOUTH	Constituency (BCon)	Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
SUNDERLAND ST JOHN	Ecclesiastical Parish (EP)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 116.
SUNDERLAND WEST	Registration sub-District	1911 Census of England and Wales, Table 5, 'Registration Counties, Districts and Sub-districts with their constituent civil parishes. - Urban or Rural District in which each parish is situated; Area; families or separate occupiers, and population, 1901 and 1911; and population enumerated in Institutions, large establishments, and on vessels, &c., 1911'.
WEARMOUTH	Ancient District (AD_Town/Borough)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 663.
	Local Government District (MB/CB)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 663.
	Rural Deanery	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 864.
WEST SUNDERLAND	Registration sub-District	Registrar General, Decennial Supplement (HM Stationery Office)

NB: These are all the names of all the administrative units which we have associated with Sunderland, and you must judge whether all or even any of them are variant names for the place. They may well include the names of other locations or areas:

• For cities, the associated administrative units will usually include parishes, especially ecclesiastical parishes, one of whose names is the name of the city followed by a saint's dedication, with just the saint's name as another variant. Parish names will sometimes also include "places" within towns.
• Districts usually contain more than one settlement, and some districts had their names changed to take the name of a completely different settlement. As we link each administrative unit to just one of our "places", usually the last place the unit was named after, in these cases the name for a completely different place will appear on this page.
• Similarly, a unit may sometimes be named after a particular settlement it contains and sometimes to indicate its location within a higher level unit. This was very common among British parliamentary constituencies in rural areas, one name referring to their main town and another indicating that they were in, say, the southern part of the relevant county.



Every name listed here is linked to the particular historical source in which it appears, but we cannot claim that these are all the historical names of Sunderland, or that our references are to the first usage of the names. Similarly, we have tried to ensure that names included here are not transcription errors by ourselves, but it is possible they are the result of errors made when the historical sources were printed, or the result of visiting authors or census officials mis-hearing local names.

How to reference this page:



GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Sunderland in County Durham | Place names, A Vision of Britain through Time.

URL: https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/786/names

Date accessed: 22nd April 2025