Manchester
The name Manchester originates from the Latin name "Mamucium" or its variant "Mancunium" and the citizens are still referred to as Mancunians (). These are generally thought to represent a Latinisation of an original Brittonic name, either from "mamm-" ("breast", in reference to a "breast-like hill") or from "mamma" ("mother", in reference to a local river goddess). Both meanings are preserved in Insular Celtic languages, such as "mam" meaning "breast" in Irish and "mother" in Welsh. The suffix -chester is a survival of Old English "ceaster" and from that "castra" in latin for camp or settlement ("fort; fortified town").
Eccles, Greater Manchester
The derivation of the name is uncertain, but several ideas have been proposed. One is that the "Eccles" place-name is derived from the Romano-British "Ecles" or "Eglys", itself derived from the Ancient Greek "Ecclesia". Following the arrival in AD 613 of the invading Anglo-Saxons at Lancashire, many existing British place-names, especially rivers and hills (the River Irwell for example), survived intact. The root "Ecles", found in several village names, is an exception to this. A popular theory is that the word denoted the site of a building recognised by the Anglo-Saxons as a church and feature of the landscape. Eccles appears to have been such a village, and "Ecles" may be the likely source of the modern name. In Kenyon's "Origins of Lancashire" (1991), however, the author suggests that this may not be the case as there is not an exact correlation between "Eccles" place-names and pre-"Domesday" hundreds in south Lancashire.