Ælfrun

Female
DWP
4 of 5

Discussion of the name

Ælfrun is an Old English feminine name comprising the elements ælf ‘elf, sprite’ and rūn ‘mystery, secret’.  The DB and Exon Domesday spellings all show an ‹e› inserted between the two elements, which von Feilitzen (1937: 73) regarded as evidence of Norman influence but which is just as likely to represent a parasitic connecting vowel of the type found elsewhere in late Old English (Campbell 1969: 152-3).

The only instance of the name recorded prior to DB was Ælfrun 1, who was a sister of Romsey Abbey in the late tenth or early eleventh century.  The name also occurs in a handful of place-names (Hough 2002: 90) but only two of these need be pre-Conquest coinings: Afflington in Dorset is discussed under Ælfrun 4, while the Sussex hundred-name Auronehelle recorded in DB appears to derive from Ælfrun and Old English hyll ‘hill’ (Mawer et al. 1929-30: 2 408). 

In this latter example, the editors of The Place-Names of Sussex asserted that the name Ælfrun was ‘probably of Scandinavian origin’ but offered no supporting evidence for this and their suggestion has not been adopted by others.  Indeed, both elements of the name are well-evidenced in other Old English names and the few examples of the name are predominantly from southern England, which also points to an English rather than Scandinavian origin.  The scarcity of examples is noteworthy, however, and even if we allow for the general under-recording of women’s names in early material it remains likely that Ælfrun was a rare name in pre-Conquest England.

Bibliography

Campbell 1969: A. Campbell, Old English Grammar (Oxford, 1959; revised edition, 1969)

von Feilitzen 1937: O. von Feilitzen, The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book, Nomina Germanica 3 (Uppsala, 1937)

Hough 2002: C. Hough, ‘Women in English place-names’, in ‘Lastworda Betst’: Essays in Memory of Christine E. Fell , ed. C. Hough and K. A. Lowe (Donington, 2002)

Mawer et al. 1929-30: A. Mawer and F. M. Stenton with J. E. B. Gover, The Place-Names of Sussex, 2 vols, English Place-Name Society 6-7 (Cambridge, 1929-30)

Forms of the name

Spelling in Domesday Book: Alueron

Spelling in Exon Domesday: Alueron(a)

Forms in modern scholarship:

von Feilitzen head form: Ælfrūn

Phillimore edition: Alfrun

Alecto edition: Ælfrun

Distribution map of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

List of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

Holder 1066

Shire Phil. ref. Vill DB Spelling Holder 1066 Lord 1066 Tenant-in-Chief 1086 1086 Subtenant Fiscal Value 1066 Value 1086 Value Conf. Show on Map
Devon 24,15 Canonsleigh Alueron Ælfrun 'of Lowman' - Walter de Claville - 0.38 0.38 0.38 C Map
Devon 24,6 Drayford Alueron Ælfrun 'of Lowman' - Walter de Claville - 0.72 0.50 0.75 C Map
Devon 24,7 Sydeham Alueron Ælfrun 'of Lowman' - Walter de Claville Osbern 'of Sydeham' 0.25 0.50 0.50 C Map
Devon 24,8 Craze Lowman Alueron Ælfrun 'of Lowman' - Walter de Claville - 0.75 1.50 1.50 B Map
Devon 24,8 Kidwell Alueron Ælfrun 'of Lowman' - Walter de Claville - 0.25 0.50 0.50 C Map
Dorset 28,6 Afflington Alueron Ælfrun 'of Afflington' - Roger de Beaumont - 2.00 2.50 2.50 C Map
Totals