Ekwall's "Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names" (4th ed. 1960) accepted Denton's "torr+pen+howe" etymology (against the 1950s "Tosti" proposal), but notes that "torr+penn" is not tautological. He expresses the idea of "top or breast of the hill", to which "howe" was added in a (single) tautology. The most recent published etymology is the '"ocky summit" to which was added "hill-spur"', the three elements of Torpenhow deriving from, Old English "torr" 'a rock, a rocky outcrop, a rocky peak', Primitive Welsh "penn" 'head, end, top, height, a hill', and Old English "hōh" 'a heel; a sharply projecting piece of ground'.