Sunna was a
Saxon
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
chief whose people were widespread in eastern
Berkshire
Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...
, southern
England. A number of
English place names are derived from this name including
Sonning (historically spelled "Sunning"),
Sonning Eye,
Sunbury,
Sunningdale,
Sunninghill and
Sunningwell
Sunningwell is a village and civil parish about south of Oxford, England. The parish includes the village of Bayworth and the eastern part of Boars Hill. The parish was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxford ...
, many close to the
River Thames.
One historian notes that "Sunbury may be named after Sunna, the eponymous founder of the ''provincia quae appellatur Sunninges'', whose territory lay in Berkshire west of the lands granted to
Chertsey in the mid-670s". A historian of
Wessex has commented "The Sunna of Sonning and related names... was clearly a local potentate of no small importance".
Searle's ''Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum'' finds that Sunna was a rare personal name.
However, a 1937 theory held that "The meaning of sunna is likely to be ''wet or marshy land''...
sin Sonning, h
ndre. and par
sh... near
Reading, and in Sunninghill in south-east Berkshire".
[Robert Eugen Zachrisson, ''Studia neophilologica'', Vols. 9-11 (1937), p. 78]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sunna (Saxon Chief)
Anglo-Saxon people
6th-century English people