As the DOELP (s. v. Vilar) points out, the name Vilar, frequent in the north of Portugal and in Galicia, indicates the part of the villa that was granted by the owner to clients or serfs for agricultural exploration; moreover, Formoso gives a clearer indication of the etymma of the adjective (Latin formosus ‘abundant form’,…

Eljas is also the name of the river that flows through the locality. Castaño Fernández (125) has brought together the different hypotheses and we see that the name has many graphic variants, since, in addition to As Ellas in Fala, Erjas or Erges in Portuguese, we find Elga, Elgas, Ergas, Erga, Erje, Heljas, Herjas and…

Valverde del Fresno is transparent as an allusive oronym to the valley (there are several Valverde in Extremadura itself: de Burguillos, de la Vera, de Leganés, de la Llerena, de Mérida) and with a toponymic complement, el del Fresno, which includes a phytonym that is not at all unusual in the toponymy of Extremadura.

Zarza is very common in minor toponymy and alludes to the rosaceous plant thus named, probably with a collective meaning applicable to the wild, scrubby terrain, which is still present in Portuguese; the toponyms Zarza are equivalent to ‘bush’ or ‘rockrose’. La Mayor is distinguished from the others by the importance of the town, which…

Its name combines two terms, base and complement, which are characteristically frontier terms; the toponyms Salvatierra usually refer to localities which, during the Reconquest, were used to defend the frontier. Erected as fortifications in frontier territory, the people who arrived there undertook to defend it, while benefiting from certain privileges and the protection of the…

Segura, a Portuguese locality with a name of probable Spanish influence in allusion to the point that guards the border. This type of toponym referred to places of defence, secure posts and fortified areas.

It is one of the westernmost Spanish towns on the ‘Raya vertical’, as it is located in the corner of the inlet formed by the Tagus and its tributary Sever. As Carrasco González (2017, 2569-2571) explains, the initial name of Cedillo must have been the Portuguese Casalinho, as the first inhabitants were probably Beirenses. Derived…

It must be the same toponym as Montalbán, i.e. a compound of monte, although it is not entirely clear whether the lat. albanus, which is presumed to be an etymonym of the second component, refers to the colour white, to an anthroponym or whether it is an oronymic element like the first.

Opposite Valencia and La Fontañera, in Portugal, is Marvão, whose anthroponymic origin, in reference to the Muladí Ibn Marwan al-Yil’liqui ‘El gallego’, founder of Badajoz, reminds us of the common Muslim rule of these lands within the Taifa of Badajoz. The appellative ‘Galician’ referred to his family origins in the north of the Iberian Peninsula.…

Its surname comes from the military order that repopulated this territory and was entrusted with its defence. The name of the order is also present in the names of the nearby and bordering towns of San Vicente, Herrera -port. Ferreira-, Santiago and Mata, as well as in Alcántara itself. This toponym is of transparent etymology…