The commune has been awarded one flower by the National Council of Towns and Villages in Bloom in the Competition of cities and villages in Bloom.[3]
Geography
Authie is located some 6 km (4 mi) north-west of the centre of Caen. Access to the commune is by road D220 from Villons-les-Buissons in the north-east which passes through the centre of the commune and the village and continues to Carpiquet in the south. The D220C also goes south-east from the village to the urban area of Caen. There are also the hamlets of Hameau de Saint-Louet, Franqueville, Fermie du Calvaire, and Cussy in the commune. Apart from the large residential area the commune is entirely farmland.[4]
The name of the town is attested in the forms Alteium in 1227 and Auteya in 1264.[5]
Albert Dauzat matched Authie with Authie in Somme department (Altegiam 830) on the coastal river Authie (Alteia 723) and considers it primarily as a hydronym but does not provide any further explanation.[6]
According to René Lepelley this toponym is based on the pre-Celtic element alt in an unknown sense and is close to Authou in Pont-Authou.[7]
François de Beaurepaire sees a Gallic (Celtic) element in the alt in Authou.[8]
The Gallic term Attegia was recognized by Xavier Delamarre in Atheist-type names - e.g. Athis in the sense of "cabin or hut".[9]
This analyses to ad- (pre-verb) and tegia meaning "house" (cf. Old Irish teg, old Welsh tig, Welsh Ty, Old Breton tig, and Breton ti all meaning "house").[10]
It is likely that Authie contains the same element tegia preceded by another prefix. From a phonetic point of view there is a palatalization of the intervocalic consonant where [g] becomes [j] and then an Amuïssement or attenuation of [j]>[∅], a recurrent phenomenon in phonetics.
The same author explains that Arthies (Artegiae 680) may come from *Are-tegia which is a possible solution for Authie, knowing that [r] regularly becomes [l] before a consonant.
The name Altavilla is either a medieval romanization of a place named Hauteville as in Hauteville in Manche department and therefore does not relate to Authie. It may be a scribal error for *Alteia Villa or *Villa Alteia which mentions a villa, i.e. a rural area in medieval Latin, in a place called Alteia which is Authie.
History
In 1832 Authie (466 inhabitants in 1831) absorbed Saint-Louet-près-Authie (9 people)[11] in the west of its territory.
The commune was liberated on 8 June 1944 but was largely destroyed in the bombing.
^Albert Dauzat and Charles Rostaing, Etymological Dictionary of place names in France, Librairie Guénégaud Paris 6th edition, 1979, p. 39a. (in French)
^René Lepelley, Etymological Dictionary of commune names in Normandy, Charles Corlet éditions PUC 1994, p. 54b - 55a. ISBN978-2-905461-80-3(in French)
^The names of communes and old parishes in Eure, A. and J. Picard, François de Beaurepaire, preface by Marcel Baudot, 1981, Paris, 221 pages, ISBN2-7084-0067-3, OCLC9675154, p. 56 (in French)
^Xavier Delamarre, Dictionary of the Gallic language, éditions Errance 2003, p. 59. (in French)
