Editing Todmorden (section)

===Etymology===
The name ''Todmorden'' is first attested in 1246, in the form ''Totmardene'';<ref name=":0" /> other pre-modern spellings include ''Tottemerden'', ''Totmereden'' and ''Totmerden''.<ref name=":1" /> This is thought to originate in [[Old English]] as a personal name, ''Totta'', combined with the Old English words ''mǣre''  ('border, boundary') and ''denu'' ('valley'). Thus the name once meant 'Totta's border-valley'.<ref name=":0">''The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, Based on the Collections of the English Place-Name Society'', ed. by Victor Watts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), s.v. ''Todmorden''.</ref><ref name=":1" />  The valley in question is thought to have been the one running north-west from the town,<ref name=":1">Nicolaisen, Gelling & Richards, ''The Names of Towns and Cities in Britain'', p.&nbsp;181</ref> and the border the one between Lancashire and Yorkshire.<ref name=":0" />

Although fanciful and historically implausible, alternative etymologies circulate, such as the speculation that the name derives from two words for death: German ''Tod'' and French ''mort'',<ref>Glyn Hughes, foreword in "Todmorden Album 4", (Birch R.) p.&nbsp;6</ref> or that the name meant "marshy den of the fox", supposedly from ''tod'', a word of uncertain origin meaning 'fox' first attested around 1200,<ref>{{cite dictionary|url=https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/202809 |title=tod, n.1. |dictionary=Oxford English Dictionary Online |edition=3rd |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2023 |accessdate= 18 April 2023}}</ref> ''moor'' (which in Old English meant 'marsh'), and ''den'' (also attested in Old English to mean an animal's lair).{{citation needed|date=April 2023}}

'Tod' is an informal name for Todmorden, often used in everyday conversation.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.todmordennews.co.uk/news/our-prince-loved-tod-1-2893223|title=Our Prince loved Tod!|date=30 December 2010|work=Todmorden News|access-date=11 May 2021|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20190813034429/https://www.todmordennews.co.uk/news/our-prince-loved-tod-1-2893223|archivedate=13 August 2019|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.southpennines.co.uk/explore/todmorden/|title=Todmorden |work= South Pennines|accessdate=23 May 2018}}</ref>