Duddenhoe, Farnham, Haverill, Wicken, and others, pointing to Norrena-speaking people. There are several groups of names in Essex, such as Roothings and Raines, which have been derived from clan settlements. The eight places called Roothing are all near each other, and Braintree, anciently Rayne Magna, was a centre of the settlement of people called by the clan-name Rayne. Dengy, also called Danesey, near the coast, points to Danish occupants.
The Old English place-names[1] in Essex that are suggestive of settlements of families or communities of Wends are important. They are Wenesuuic, Wendena’, Weninchou, Wenesteda’, and the hundred name Wensistreu. These names appear to have been chiefly those of localities in the south and west of the county, and Wanstead, the ancient Wenesteda’, survives. There is also an old place in Essex close to the Thames called Wenington.[2] When we remember the evidence of settlements of Wends, whether named from heads of families or communities, which exists in the place-names and surviving customs in the higher parts of the valley of the Thames, there can be little doubt that these old place-names in Esssex point to people of the same race. The name Wendena in the genitive plural appears to denote a kindred of them. The modern name is Wendens, south of Chesterford, where the custom of borough-English survived, and this confirms the Wendish origin of the name. From the evidence of probable Wendish settlements in Essex, Sussex, and parts of Wessex, it would appear that the Saxons at the time of the settlement of these parts of England were in alliance with some tribe or tribes of Wends, as the Continental Saxons were with the Wendish Wiltzi in the time of Charlemagne. These Wend names in Essex and elsewhere in England can be compared with similar names in the old frontier lands
