The Romans were city dwellers. But the Anglo-Saxons were people of the countryside who lived in villages.
The first villages of the Anglo-Saxons were called after the chieftain. We know these because the names end in 'ing' or 'folk', which means 'the people of'. So Sonning means the 'people of Sonna', or 'Sonna's tribe'. Later on villages came to be named after the landscape.
Village names therefore tell us something about what Anglo-Saxon times were like.
