Dover The Port of Dover provides much of the town's employment, as does tourism. First recorded in its Latinised form of "Portus Dubris", the name derives from the Brythonic word for waters ("dwfr" in Middle Welsh. The same element is present in the town's French ("Douvres") and Modern Welsh ("Dofr") forms (though the modern Welsh name is in fact a borrowing from, and an adaptation of, the English name Dover), as well as the name of the river Dour and is evident in other English towns such as Wendover. The current name was in use at least by the time of
English Place-Name Society English Place-Name Society The English Place-Name Society (EPNS) is a learned society concerned with toponomastics and the toponymy of England, in other words, the study of place-names (toponyms). Its scholars aim to explain the origin and history of the names they study, taking into account factors such as the meaning of the elements out of which they were created (which can be in languages such as Old English, or early Welsh, Danish, Norwegian or Cornish etc.); the topography, geology and ecology of the places bearing the names; and the general and local history and culture of England. In 1922 Professor