The Origin of the village name 'GREETHAM'.

Greetham is a village in Lincolnshire, United Kingdom at 53º 13.2' North, 0º 1.8' West. (OS ref. TF 307 707) at a height of 122 metres above sea level.

Finding the origin of the name 'Greetham is not as easy as first appears. In the Domesday Book entries it is described as 'Granham', or 'Grandham'. From this it would appear that the name means 'Great' or 'Fine' dwelling. However, this appears to be the name the Normans wrote in the book rather than its original name. There are several examples of confusion and mistakes made by the Domesday book compilers. For instance, it has been pointed out how similar the Domesday Book name is to the ones used for 'Grantham', also a town in Lincolnshire. (Grandham, Graham etc.) In any other documentation, even within decades of the Domesday book, it is described as 'Greetham' or similar. Of course it is possible that the pre-conquest name was 'Great' - ham and the Normans translated this as 'Grand' - ham but it is just as likely to be a mistaken translation of 'Greet'. The question is still open but I am pursuaded, at the moment, that the earliest form is a derivative of 'Greetham', and that it comes from the Old Scandinavian 'Gróit', meaning 'gravel' or 'stoney', and the Old English 'Ham' or 'dwelling'. Thus 'a dwelling by a stoney place'. This is not unreasonable since there are several gravel pits in the area and the soil is full of small stoney pieces of flint, which are somtimes very numberous as can be seen from this photo of a field on the eastern side of Greetham.

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