Gender Women’s names Post-Conquest After the Conquest, it is noticeable that any change to the adoption of the new name forms was slower amongst women than men. Cecily Clark suggested that this was due to the fact that the Normans, Bretons, etc. did not bring many women with them. Hence they took their wives from Anglo-Saxon society, and the wives’ names continued as role-models for others. By the 13th c. Although female names became concentrated to a smallish number of heavily-used names, unconventional (florid, ornate) names still existed at the margins (noticeably more than for men). These unconventional names seem to be more associated with the upper layers of society, rather than the unfree peasantry and they reached their peak in the 13th C., disappearing by the later middle ages. “At the margin, female names contained elements of creativity, lexical meaning, and recovery of names of classical antiquity. We might attribute this difference to the impulse to name male children within the kinship as a patrilinear strategy. Equally, however, this difference of expectation of males and females allowed parents to indulge in recognition of female children as individuals,… male offspring to recognize the obligation to the land and family; and female siblings to be associated with particular ‘virtues’.” (Postles Naming the People of England p 88) Cross-gender names Elicia (Elisia, Elycia), Nicholaa, Laurencia, Egidia (female form of Egidius (Giles)), Benedicta, Jacobina and Phillipa. Philip, Thomas and Nicholas could all be applied to girls, and hence might produce metronymics. Welsh female Gwenlan < Gwenllian Gainor < Gaenor English female Edith, of Old English origin, continued to be popular, even in the late 14th Century.