We have seen in a preceding chapter that the earliest Saxon place-names in England are derived from a personal name, and that the idea contained is that of a modified form of common right. We shall find that a very large proportion of the later Anglo-Saxon place-names are also derived from the name of a man, but that the idea contained is now that of individual ownership or occupation. The extent to which English place-names are derived from ancient names of men is, in my judgment, very much greater than is generally supposed. And indeed, when we come to consider it, what can be so naturally associated with a _ham_ as the name of the man who lived in that home, of a _weorth_ as that of the man to whom that property belonged, of a Saxon _tun_ or a Danish _by_ or _thorp_ as that of the man to whom the place owed its existence? If we turn to Kemble's list of Anglo-Saxon names of places as derived from ancient charters, in the days when the individual owner had succeeded to the community, we cannot fail to remark to how large an extent this obtains, and how many of these names are in the possessive case. Now, it must be observed that there are in Anglo-Saxon two forms of the possessive, and that when a man's name had the vowel ending in _a_, as noted at p. 24, it formed its possessive in _an_, while otherwise it formed its possessive in _es_. Thus we have Baddan byrig, "Badda's borough," Bennan beorh, "Benna's barrow" or grave, and in the other form we have Abbodes byrig, "Abbod's borough," Bluntes ham, "Blunt's home," and Sylces wyrth, "Silk's worth" or property. And as compound names did not take a vowel ending, such names invariably form their possessive in _es_, as in Haywardes ham, "Hayward's home," Cynewardes gemæro, "Cyneward's boundary," &c. I am not at all sure that _ing_ also has not, in certain cases, the force of a possessive, and that Ælfredincgtun, for instance, may not mean simply "Alfred's town" and not Alfreding's town. But I do not think that this is at any rate the general rule, and it seems scarcely possible to draw the line. From the possessive in _an_ I take to be most probably our present place-names Puttenham, Tottenham, and Sydenham, (respecting the last of which there has been a good deal of discussion of late in _Notes and Queries_), containing the Anglo-Saxon names _Putta_, _Totta_, and _Sida_. With regard to the last I have not fallen in with the name _Sida_ itself. But I deduce such a name from Sydanham, C.D. 379, apparently a place in Wilts, also perhaps from Sidebirig, now Sidbury, in Devon; and there is, moreover, a corresponding O.G. _Sido_, the origin being probably A.S. _sidu_, manners, morals. Further traces of such a stem are found in _Sidel_ deduced from Sidelesham, now Sidlesham, in Sussex, and also from the name _Sydemann_ in a charter of Edgar, these names implying a pre-existing stem _sid_ upon which they have been formed.