Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/29

Rh the subject, the tendency of people to modify names into more familiar forms, or to modify their sound for the sake of change and variety alone, will find himself in difficulties with a considerable number of them. The oldest forms of those place-names that are also tribal names are important evidence, which will not be invalidated if in many instances the name has been derived from the personal name of the head of a family rather than from the people of a community. The early customary ties of kindred among the Anglo-Saxons were very strong. With a chieftain, some of his kindred commonly lived under a primitive form of family law. A chief or headman named Hundeman or Huneman by his neighbours around the Anglo—Saxon place Hundemanebi, now Hunmanby in Yorkshire, may reasonably be considered to have been a Frisian of the Hunni or Hunsing tribe, and the people who settled with him to have been of his family or kindred. Similarly, where we find a place named after the Wends or Vandals, it may have derived its name from the Vandal chief alone, or from the community of kindred people under him. Such an Anglo-Saxon name as Wendelesworth in Surrey could hardly have been derived from any other circumstance than the settlement on the south bank of the Thames of a man named Wendel, because he was of the Vandal or Wendish race, or from a kindred of Vandals. The name of this place appears much earlier than that of the stream of the same name. It matters little whether the name arose from the Wendish chief or from his people. The name Wendel was probably given to him or them, because of his or their Wendish or Vandal origin, by the people of adjoining settlements in Surrey or Middlesex, who were of another tribal origin.

This case of Wandsworth is interesting, not only because its old name points to a Wendish origin, but also on account of its custom of junior inheritance, which was of immemorial usage and came down to modern times.