Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/96

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Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.

traces of the custom of giving to people the same names as those of the tribes and clans to which they belonged. Many instances may also be found of men, when they lived as foreigners among people of another race, being known by the name of their own nation. Some of these old tribal clan or national names have come down as surnames to modern times. During the period of the Anglo-Saxon settlement it could scarcely have been otherwise in our own country. Men must have been commonly designated by their tribal or clan names if they lived among neighbours of another tribe who were unacquainted with the names by which these men called themselves. Such names are descriptive of the individuals to whom they were applied, and as in the early Anglo-Saxon period a tun or a ham was commonly named after that of the head of the family living in it, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that many of the names of these early tuns and hams must be the same as the tribal and clan names of their first occupants. Personal names derived from those of tribes are older than those derived from countries or districts in which tribes settled. To call a man after the name of his tribe or clan in the time before the tribal wanderings of the German and Northern people had ceased was the most natural way of distinguishing him. The occurrence of so many names of people called Hun and Hune, or compounds of them, in Anglo-Saxon literature points to tribal people at that name having taken part in the settlement of England. The Hunsings and the people of the Huntanga tribe we can connect with the settlement, and with the Hunni mentioned by Bede. Many persons bearing Hun or Hune names are very frequently mentioned in Anglo-Saxon records—e.g., Hunfrith fifteen times, and Hunred twelve times. Hunman and Huneman both occur. Huna, Hunes, Hune, Hungar, Hunbeorht, Hunni, and Hunding, are some of the forms of these personal names. Some of them are probably ancestral names repeated. There are