derives from the Brittonic words that survive in modern Welsh as pen ("head, end, summit") and coed ("wood"), and thus means "head of the wood", like a number of similar names, including Pencoed and Penketh. A 12th-century copy of a charter of 957 makes mention of se wudu þe hatte Pænge, i.e. "the wood that is called Penge".

The largest amosite mine in the world, in South Africa,