It is thought that "Skivick" or "Skivik", the local name for the section of the structure visible on Wheeldale Moor, could derive from two morphemes from Old Norse. The first syllable could derive from " skeið", which could mean either a track or farm road through a field, or from a word used to describe a course or boundary. The second syllable could derive from "vík", meaning a bay or a nook between hills. Scandinavian or Norse place-names are common in Yorkshire and Norse peoples settled in the Yorkshire area from 870 AD onwards following raiding over the previous seventy years. Sawyer states that early Norse colonists had a profound effect on place-names in the areas in which they settled. Sedgefield states that the "skeið" derivation specifically in place-names within northern England points to a Scandinavian settlement of the area, but that due to the inheritance of language across generations, a place-name containing "skeið" may in any individual case have been applied any time between the ninth and fifteenth centuries. Historian Mary Atkin states that "skeið" place-names appear near Roman sites frequently enough to suggest an associative link.