Newcastle: Hyphens or No Hyphens?

Help me. Please.

I've been reading - and writing - about my hometown of Newcastle for years. And the problem is ... I don't know how to spell its name correctly. Here are some alternatives:

Newcastle

Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Newcastle-Upon-Tyne

Newcastle upon Tyne

Newcastle Upon Tyne

Newcastle-on-Tyne

Newcastle on Tyne

And, historically:

New-cassell on Tine

Newcastle upon Tine

Newcastle on Tine

(and all the hyphenated versions of the above)

etc,

etc,

etc,

...

And then there are all the various Latin spellings of the name.

Phew!

Moreover, when I was young, you'd often see the name abbreviated in various forms, e.g. N/cle-on-Tyne, or perhaps N-o-T. And now, of course, we have 'The Toon'! But that's neither here nor there.

I'd never worried too much about it all until I came to publish my two recent books on the subject of the city's history. So many different options had presented themselves to me over the years that I didn't think it mattered too much, and that as long as you were consistent in your spelling when writing about the place you'd be fine. I plumped for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (with hyphens), and didn't spend too much time nor effort worrying about it.

However, a recent exchange on Twitter seemed to indicate that I was in the minority. 'Newcastle upon Tyne' (no hyphens) seems to be the way of things these days, so I thought that maybe I should be changing my ways. Was there any way of finding out the definitive answer, I wondered?

I conducted a sort of 'straw poll' of my many books on the city's history (and a huge raft of digital works I have collection on Google Books), but found a massive difference of opinion in texts old and new. The most popular spelling is, I reckon, 'Newcastle upon Tyne', but, really, I was none the wiser. At times, an individual book would contradict itself from page to page; and just when I thought I had a consensus for the spelling, I'd find an esteemed Victorian historian inserting a couple of hyphens and I'd be back to square one. Arghhh!

The problem may, I thought, be solved by finding out when the 'upon Tyne' suffix was added to 'Newcastle'. The problem is that the town does not have a surviving 'foundation charter' as such. A very early reference to the town by name is made in a mid-twelfth century document known as 'The Customs of Newcastle', in which the settlement is given the Latin name Novi Castelli super Tinam, which, translated, gives us precisely 'New Castle upon (or over/above) Tyne'. The original Latin document is very faint, but there doesn't appear to be any hyphens! (see here).

It seems that, like surnames and other place-names in general, variant spellings/forms of the city's name co-existed for centuries, and that only recently have folk become fussy about what is right and what is wrong. Some folk get quite annoyed about the situation, it seems, too! The city council's website goes with 'Newcastle upon Tyne', as do institutions such as the Lit & Phil and the Society of Antiquaries. And the 'BBC News Style Guide' (for what it's worth) goes the same way. The modern-day insistence on fixed spellings seems to have come down in favour of the unhyphenated version, I think it's fair to say; but you still see the hyphens, too, from time to time 😖

So, will I change my ways in future mentions and references to the city? Or shall I stick to my guns for the sake of consistency? 

Perhaps I'm thinking about it too much.