A follow-on from yesterday's post on names - we think of Alfred, Harold, Edward and Edmund as perfectly normal English names. But Gyrth? Tostig? Wulfnoth? Leofwine? Those sound as though the parents have either joined a re-enactment society or lost a bet.
Which is odd, because there is nothing intrinsically more normal about Alfred than Gyrth. They are all Anglo-Saxon names. Some simply survived, or were later dragged back into fashion, while the others were abandoned by the roadside.
1066 did much of the damage. The Normans did not just take the land. They changed the naming habits too. William, Robert, Richard and Henry became fashionable while much of the old English repertoire faded away.
Edward survived because Edward the Confessor became a saint and later kings kept the name alive. Alfred was revived when the Victorians rediscovered Alfred the Great and decided he was exactly the sort of industrious, cake-burning national hero they wanted. Harold got the tragic-last-English-king treatment.
Gyrth had no such luck. He died at Hastings too, but lacked top billing.
Tostig was probably beyond saving anyway, having helped Harald Hardrada invade England. Not ideal nursery material.
Wulfnoth simply sounds, to modern ears, like something you would ask the pharmacist about.
That is the whole trick. We confuse familiarity with normality. Had the Victorians taken a shine to Gyrth, there would now be retired accountants called Gyrth and nobody would think twice. Instead Alfred is respectable, Harold is old-fashioned and Gyrth sounds ridiculous.
Not because it is.
Because history forgot to keep saying it.
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