We now pass to the more direct consideration of the local names with the supposed patronymic suffix.
Wide extension and meaning of the patronymic suffix 'ing,' &c.
These peculiar local names are scattered over a wide area; the suffix varying from the English ing with its plural 'ingas,' the German ing or ung with its plural ingas, ingen, ungen, ungun, and the French 'ign' or igny, to the Swiss[534] equivalent ikon, the Bohemian ici,[535] and the wider Slavonic itz or witz.
It seems to be clear that the termination ing, in its older plural form ingas, in Anglo-Saxon, not by any means always,[536] but still in a large number of cases, had a patronymic significance.
We have the evidence of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle itself that if Baldo were the name of the parent, his children or heirs would in Anglo-Saxon be called Baldings[537] (Baldingas).
There is also evidence that the oldest historical form of settlement in Bohemian and Slavic districts [p355] was in the tribal or joint household—the undivided family sometimes for many generations herding together in the same homestead (dĕdiny).[538]
And the number of local names ending in ici, or owici, changing in later times into itz and witz, taken together with the late prevalence of the undivided household in these semi-Slavonic regions, so far as it goes, confirms the connexion of the patronymic termination with the holding of the co-heirs of an original holder.[539]
The geographical distribution of local names with the patronymic termination is shown on the same map as that on which were marked the position of the 'hams' and 'heims.'
In England.
First, as regards England, the map will show that in the distribution of places mentioned in the Domesday survey ending in ing, the largest proportion occurs east of a line drawn from the Wash to the Isle of Wight: just as in the case of the 'hams,' only that in Sussex the greatest number of 'ings' occurs instead of in Essex.