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Are there any place names in the UK that have non-ASCII characters?

I’m looking for any cities, towns, villages, etc. in the UK that use characters that aren’t in the basic ASCII range (code points 0—127). This is for setting up test data for address character conversions on a website. This question is specific to UK addresses, as the international address tests have already been written.

As a bonus question, could anyone come up with any of the following with non-ASCII characters:

  • House name (should be easy as house names often seem to be in a foreign language)?
  • Street name?
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    Asking for lists of things is generally considered "Not Constructive" all across the SE network. Here is the wikipedia article that can answer your question: List of United Kingdom locations
    – Matt E. Эллен
    Apr 12, 2013 at 9:59
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    Thanks for the link. To clarify, I'm not asking for a comprehensive list - just one or more examples.
    – Steve Chambers
    Apr 12, 2013 at 10:02
  • So converting my answer to a comment: Any Gaelic or Welsh town with accents would trip you
    – mplungjan
    Apr 12, 2013 at 11:08

2 Answers 2

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Addresses in Northern Ireland may be given in either English or Irish. For example, Belfast may be Béal Feirste. I believe the same applies in both Scotland (for Scottish Gaelic) and Wales (for Welsh).

If you specifically want a street name, The Falls Road in Belfast also has an Irish name (Bóthar na bhFáll, I believe, though I could be wrong).

Also, it's conceivably possible, though unlikely, that someone could write Irish names in traditional Irish orthography, where the séimhithe is indicated by a dot over the letter instead of a h after the letter: Bóṫar na ḃFáll. This usage is exceedingly rare these days.

ḃ ċ ḋ ḟ ġ ṁ ṗ ṡ ṫ

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    Nice example (Béal Feirste). Will probably use this one for the Town/City field - thanks.
    – Steve Chambers
    Apr 12, 2013 at 10:16
  • Thanks for the Street name just added - answer accepted. Just need a House Name now and should be fine to just make one up as it's just a name. Désirée will do!
    – Steve Chambers
    Apr 12, 2013 at 10:28
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Welsh words and place names can include diacritics, such as the circumflex (ˆ) to mark long vowels as in â, ê, î, ô, û, ŵ, ŷ. Less common are the grave accent (`) and acute accent (´).

Some example place names in Wales: Llandygái, Caersŵs, Aberdâr, Pentredŵr, Llannerch-y-môr.

For the bonus question, a Welsh house name with non-ASCII characters is Tŷ Gwyn, and a Welsh street name is Stryd y Dŵr.

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    Brilliant answer! Very helpful and am using some of those in my test data. Unfortunately this q has been closed (which I find a bit odd since it seems of interest judging by the number of views and ratings). Would normally post on StackOverflow but chose this site instead since it seemed more appropriate. Sorry, this has turned into a bit of a rant when all I meant to say was thanks!
    – Steve Chambers
    Apr 13, 2013 at 13:05
  • Agree with Steve's rant. Got directed here for answer to same question: very irritated to find s/one had closed it, esp. without explaining why. Q. isn't so different from "Is it common for place names to lose their possessive apostrophe?", which remains open. Please remember when you close a question, the people in the future who will have their time wasted by not being able to get an answer. At least, I suppose, should be grateful closer didn't delete v. useful answers by Hugo and TRIG.
    – Phil van Kleur
    Jun 9, 2021 at 19:23

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