The above names are deduced entirely from the names of places found by
Mr. Kemble in ancient charters. The list is not by any means an
exhaustive one, as I have not included a number of names taken into
account in Chap. IV., and as also the same personal name enters
frequently into several place-names. With very few exceptions these
names may be gathered to the roll of Teutonic name-stems,
notwithstanding a little disguise in some of their forms, and a great,
sometimes a rather confusing, diversity of spelling. I take names such
as the above to be the representatives of the every-day names of men in
Anglo-Saxon times, rather than the names which come before us in history
and in historical documents. For it seems to me that a kind of fashion
prevailed, and that while a set of names of a longer and more dignified
character were in favour among the great, the mass of the people still,
to a great extent, adhered to the shorter and more simple names which
their fathers had borne before them. Thus, when we find an Æthelwold who
was also called Mol, an Æthelmer who was also called Dodda, and a Queen
Hrothwaru who was also called Bucge, I am disposed to take the simple
names, which are such as the earlier settlers brought over with them, to
have been the original names, and superseded by names more in accordance
with the prevailing fashion. Valuable then as is the _Liber Vitæ_ of
Durham, as a continuous record of English names for many centuries, yet
I am inclined to think that inasmuch as that the persons who come before
us as benefactors to the shrine of St. Cuthbert may be taken to be as a
general rule of the upper ranks of life, they do not afford so faithful
a representation of the every-day names of Anglo-Saxons as do the little
freeholders who lived and died in their country homes. And, moreover,
these are, as it will be seen, more especially the kind of names which
have been handed down from Anglo-Saxon times to the present day.
In connection with this subject, it may be of interest to present a list
of existing names of places formed from an Anglo-Saxon personal name, as
derived from the same ancient charters dealt with in the previous list.
And in so doing I confine myself exclusively to the places of which the
present names have been positively identified by Mr. Kemble. And in the
first place I will take the place-names which consist simply of the name
of a tribe or family unqualified by any local term whatever.
Name in
Anglo-Saxon
Charters. Present Name.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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