It is undoubtedly difficult to obtain any clear indication of the _time_[546] when these settlements may have been made. Nor, perhaps, need they be referred generally to the same period, were it not for the remarkable fact that the _personal names_ prefixed to the suffix in England, Flanders, the Moselle valley, round Troyes and Langres, in the old _Agri Decumates_ (now Wirtemburg), and in the old Rhætia (now Bavaria), and even those in Frisia, were to a very large extent _identical_. «The names are not _clan_ names, but personal names.» «But the identity of the names throughout is very remarkable.» This identity is so striking, that if the names were, as some have supposed, necessarily _clan-names_, it might be impossible to deny that the English and continental districts were peopled actually by branches of the same _clans_. But it must be admitted that, as the names to [p362] which the peculiar suffix was added were _personal_ names and not family or clan names--_John_ and _Thomas_, and not _Smith_ and _Jones_--it would not be safe to press the inference from the similarity too far. _Baldo_ was the name of a person. There may have been persons of that name in every tribe in Germany. The Baldo of one tribe need not be closely related to the Baldo of another tribe, any more than _John Smith_ need be related to _John Jones_. The households of each Baldo would be called _Baldings_, or in the old form _Baldingas_; but obviously the Baldings of England need have no clan-relationship whatever to the Baldings of Upper Germany.[547] Nevertheless, the striking similarity of mere personal names goes for something, and it is impossible to pass it by unnoticed. The extent of it may be shown by a few examples. In the following list are placed _all_ the local names mentioned in the Domesday Survey of _Sussex_, beginning with the first two letters of the alphabet in which the peculiar suffix occurs, whether as final or not,[548] and opposite to them similar personal or local [p363] names taken from the early records of _Wirtemberg_, _i.e._ the district of the Rhine, Maine, and Neckar, formerly part of the 'Agri Decumates.' «In Sussex.» _Sussex._ _Wirtemberg._ Achingeworde Acco, Echo, Eccho, Achelm Aldingeborne Aldingas Babintone Babinberch, Babenhausen, Bebingon Basingeham Besigheim Bechingetone Bechingen Beddingesjham Bedzingeswilaeri Belingeham Bellingon, Böllingerhof Berchinges Bercheim Bevringetone Bollintun Bollo, Bollinga Botingelle Böttinger Brislinga Brisgau «In Picardy.» As regards the supposed patronymic names in the district between Calais and St. Omer, Mr. Taylor states that 80 per cent. are found also in England.[549] «In the Moselle valley.» We may take as a further example the resemblance between names of places occurring in Sprüner's maps of '_Deutschlands Gaue_' in the Moselle valley and those of places and persons mentioned in early Wirtemberg charters.