The town was first mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Neuport, Old English for 'New Market Town', but by that time, the old Anglo-Saxon town was dominated by the Norman invaders. The suffix 'Pagnell' came later when the manor passed into the hands of the Pagnell (Paynel) family. It was the principal town of the "Three Hundreds of Newport", a district that had almost the same boundary as the modern City of Milton Keynes UA.
