At the present day our nomenclature has changed so utterly that Emma sounds like ordinary English, while AElfgifu sounds like a wholly foreign word.

The incidental light thrown upon our history by the careful study of personal names is indeed so valuable that a few remarks upon the subject seem necessary in order to complete our hasty survey of Anglo-Saxon Britain.
During the very earliest period when we catch a glimpse of the English people on the Continent or in eastern Britain, a double system of naming seems to have prevailed, not wholly unlike our modern plan of Christian and surname.

The clan name was appended to the personal one.

A man was apparently described as Wulf the Holting, or as Creoda the AEscing.

The clan names were in many cases common to the English and the Continental Teutons.