Celtic tribes living in what would become the British Isles some 2500 years ago were given the name "Britons", probably by Phoenician traders. When the Romans conquered Briton in the 1st Century AD they used the name Britannia to refer to the lands that would essentially become modern day England (and some, but not all, of Wales.) The Romans left around the 5th Century AD, plunging Briton into what has become known as "The Dark Ages", due to the lack of written historical records from the period. By 410, England was inhabited by a mixture of Britons, Angles and Saxons, two separate Germanic tribes. The Britons faced constant attacks from the Picts and Scots to the northwest, and Jutes (Danes and Normans) to the southeast. During this period the Anglo-Saxon dialect began to form into a new language, known as Old English. During the 8th Century Vikings from Scandinavia started making occasional raids on the country, generally being repelled but sometimes managing to establish a foothold. As time went on some Viking words began to be absorbed by the evolving Old English language. During the ninth century, the Danes began a series of major raids on the whole of England. This ended in an agreement which left the Danes in control of half of the country. In 886 the English King Alfred the Great took control of London from the Danes. It was around this time that the Old English word "Engla lande", meaning "the land of the Angles" was used to describe the country. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England http://www.uta.edu/english/tim/courses/4301f98/oct12.html Although I didn't get the direct answer from this site, I found it to be a very dense and interesting resource: http://www.houseofnames.com/xq/asp/sId./kbId.171/title.A+brief+History+/qx/knowledgebase.htm