Belfast, County Antrim : Place names

Names from historical writing:

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

Name	Author	Source
BELFAST	John Bartholomew	Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
BELFAST	Samuel Lewis	A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (London: S. LEWIS & Co., 1837).
BELFAST LOWER AND UPPER	John Bartholomew	Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).

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 Belfast. Click on the links for details of the units and their names:

Name	Unit Type	Source
BELFAST	Barony (IrlCorpTown)	UK Government, Census of Ireland. 1851. General Alphabetical Index to the Townlands and Towns of Ireland (Dublin: HM Stationery Office, 1861), p. 952.
	District/Unitary Authority	Census of Population (Northern Ireland Census 2011 Key Statistics)
	District/Unitary Authority	Northern Ireland Acts and Orders (Local Government (Boundaries) Act (Northern Ireland) 2008)
	Irish Town	UK Government, Census of Ireland. 1851. General Alphabetical Index to the Townlands and Towns of Ireland (Dublin: HM Stationery Office, 1861), p. 146.
	Nuts Unit Level 3	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (NUTS, level 3 (January 2018) Boundaries UK)
	Poor Law Union	UK Government, Census of Ireland. 1871. Alphabetical index to the Townlands and Towns of Ireland (Dublin: HM Stationery Office, 1877), p. 758.
BELFAST CITY	Barony (IrlCorpTown)	1891 Census of Ireland, Table 3, 'Area, houses, and population in 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, and 1891, of each barony, also the general valuation in 1891'.
BELFAST CITY	Irish County	1891 Census of Ireland, Table 3, 'Area, houses, and population in 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, and 1891, of each barony, also the general valuation in 1891'.
BELFAST EAST	Constituency (PBDivCon/BCon)	Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
BELFAST LOWER	Barony	UK Government, Census of Ireland. 1871. Alphabetical index to the Townlands and Towns of Ireland (Dublin: HM Stationery Office, 1877), p. 750.
BELFAST MUNICIPAL BOROUGH OF	Barony (IrlCorpTown)	UK Government, Census of Ireland. 1851. General Alphabetical Index to the Townlands and Towns of Ireland (Dublin: HM Stationery Office, 1861), p. 874.
BELFAST NORTH	Constituency (PBDivCon/BCon)	Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
BELFAST SOUTH	Constituency (PBDivCon/BCon)	Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
BELFAST SOUTH AND MID DOWN	Constituency (PBDivCon/BCon)	House of Commons Library, Boundary review 2023: Which seats will change in the UK?
BELFAST TOWN	Barony (IrlCorpTown)	UK Government, Census of Ireland. 1851. General Alphabetical Index to the Townlands and Towns of Ireland (Dublin: HM Stationery Office, 1861), p. 952.
BELFAST UPPER	Barony	UK Government, Census of Ireland. 1871. Alphabetical index to the Townlands and Towns of Ireland (Dublin: HM Stationery Office, 1877), p. 750.
BELFAST WEST	Constituency (PBDivCon/BCon)	Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
COUNTY OF THE CITY OF BELFAST	Irish County	1861 Census of Ireland, Table [1], 'Area, population and number of houses'.
EAST BELFAST	Constituency (PBDivCon/BCon)	Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
LOWER BELFAST	Barony	Samuel Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (London: S. LEWIS & Co., 1837), p. 128.
N05000001	Constituency (PBDivCon/BCon)	House of Commons Library, Boundary review 2023: Which seats will change in the UK?
N05000002	Constituency (PBDivCon/BCon)	House of Commons Library, Boundary review 2023: Which seats will change in the UK?
N05000003	Constituency (PBDivCon/BCon)	House of Commons Library, Boundary review 2023: Which seats will change in the UK?
N05000004	Constituency (PBDivCon/BCon)	House of Commons Library, Boundary review 2023: Which seats will change in the UK?
N06000001	Constituency (PBDivCon/BCon)	House of Commons Library, Boundary review 2023: Which seats will change in the UK?
N06000002	Constituency (PBDivCon/BCon)	House of Commons Library, Boundary review 2023: Which seats will change in the UK?
N06000003	Constituency (PBDivCon/BCon)	House of Commons Library, Boundary review 2023: Which seats will change in the UK?
N06000004	Constituency (PBDivCon/BCon)	House of Commons Library, Boundary review 2023: Which seats will change in the UK?
NORTH BELFAST	Constituency (PBDivCon/BCon)	Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
QUEENS UNIVERSITY BELFAST	Constituency (UniCon)	Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
QUEENS UNIVERSITY OF BELFAST	Constituency (UniCon)	F.W.S. Craig (ed.), British Parliamentary Election Results 1950-1970 (Chichester: Political Reference Publications, 1971)
SOUTH BELFAST	Constituency (PBDivCon/BCon)	Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
TOWN OF BELFAST	Irish County	1841 Census of Ireland, Table 1, 'General table'.
TOWN OF BELFAST MUNICIPAL BOROUGH	Barony (IrlCorpTown)	1861 Census of Ireland, Table [1], 'Area, population and number of houses'.
TOWN OF BELFAST MUNICIPAL BOROUGH	Irish County	1861 Census of Ireland, Table [1], 'Area, population and number of houses'.
UKN06	Nuts Unit Level 3	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (NUTS, level 3 (January 2018) Boundaries UK)
UPPER BELFAST	Barony	Samuel Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (London: S. LEWIS & Co., 1837), p. 191.
WEST BELFAST	Constituency (PBDivCon/BCon)	Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)

NB: These are all the names of all the administrative units which we have associated with Belfast, 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 Belfast, 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.