1066 and all those baby names
Norman names such as William, Henry and Alice have been popular for 1,000 years. Why did the English copy their invaders?
The date 1066. William the Conqueror. King Harold with the arrow in his eye. Soldiers in those nose-protector helmets.
But many people will struggle to come up with more than these sketchy facts about how the Normans invaded England and overthrew the Anglo-Saxons on one bloody day almost a millennium ago.
But it was then the seeds were sown for the English language as it is today, including names.
"If you ask where did the Normans come from and what was their impact, most people run out of steam pretty quickly," says historian Robert Bartlett of the University of St Andrews.
"It's not like the Tudor era, which people are much more familiar with thanks to TV dramas and historical novels."
Further wreathing the 11th Century in mystery, says Professor Bartlett, is how unfamiliar the names of the Anglo-Saxon protagonists are to modern ears - Aethelred, Eadric, Leofric....
Read entire article at BBC News
The date 1066. William the Conqueror. King Harold with the arrow in his eye. Soldiers in those nose-protector helmets.
But many people will struggle to come up with more than these sketchy facts about how the Normans invaded England and overthrew the Anglo-Saxons on one bloody day almost a millennium ago.
But it was then the seeds were sown for the English language as it is today, including names.
"If you ask where did the Normans come from and what was their impact, most people run out of steam pretty quickly," says historian Robert Bartlett of the University of St Andrews.
"It's not like the Tudor era, which people are much more familiar with thanks to TV dramas and historical novels."
Further wreathing the 11th Century in mystery, says Professor Bartlett, is how unfamiliar the names of the Anglo-Saxon protagonists are to modern ears - Aethelred, Eadric, Leofric....