CHAPTER XIX.
ANGLO-SAXON NOMENCLATURE.
Perhaps nothing tends more to repel the modern English student from the early history of his country than the very unfamiliar appearance of the personal names which he meets before the Norman Conquest.

There can be no doubt that such a shrinking from the first stages of our national annals does really exist; and it seems to be largely due to this very superficial and somewhat unphilosophical cause.

Before the Norman invasion, the modern Englishman finds himself apparently among complete foreigners, in the AEthelwulfs, the Eadgyths, the Oswius, and the Seaxburhs of the Chronicle; while he hails the Norman invaders, the Johns, Henrys, Williams, and Roberts, of the period immediately succeeding the conquest, as familiar English friends.

The contrast can scarcely be better given than in the story told about AEthelred's Norman wife.

Her name was Ymma, or Emma; but the English of that time murmured against such an outlandish sound, and so the Lady received a new English name as AElfgifu.