Editing Penda of Mercia (section)

== Etymology ==
The etymology of the name ''Penda'' is unknown. Penda of Mercia is the only person recorded in the comprehensive ''[[Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England]]'' with this name.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://pase.ac.uk/jsp/pdb?dosp=VIEW_RECORDS&st=PERSON_NAME&value=1749&level=1&lbl=Penda. |title=Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England – Search}}</ref>

Suggestions for etymologies of the name are essentially divided between a Celtic and a Germanic origin.<ref>John Rhys, 1901 ''Celtic Folklore Welsh and Manx,'' Vol. II, Oxford University Press, p. 676</ref><ref>P. Sims-Williams, ''Religion and Literature [in Western England, 600–800]'', Cambridge 1990, p. 26.</ref>

The names of members of a Northumbrian [spiritual] brotherhood are recorded in the ninth-century ''Liber vitae Dunelmensis''; the name ''Penda'' occurs in this list and is categorised as a British (Welsh) name.<ref>Filppula ''et al.'', pp. 125–126.</ref> [[John T. Koch]] noted that "Penda and a number of other royal names from early Anglian Mercia have more obvious [[Common Brittonic|Brythonic]] than German explanations, though they do not correspond to known Welsh names."<ref>''Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia'', ABC-CLIO, 2006, ISBN 978-1851094400, p. 60</ref> These royal names include those of Penda's father Pybba, and of his son Peada.<ref>{{Citation |last1=Higham |first1=Nicholas J. |last2=Ryan |first2=Martin J. |year=2013 |title=The Anglo-Saxon World |publisher=Yale University Press |publication-date=2013 |isbn=978-0-300-12534-4}}, p. 143 (for Pybba)</ref> It has been suggested that the firm alliance between Penda and various British princes might be the result of a "racial cause."<ref>Wade-Evans p. 325</ref>

Continental Germanic comparanda for the name include a feminine ''Penta'' (9th century) and a toponym ''Penti-lingen'', suggesting an underlying personal name ''Pendi''.<ref>Notes and queries, Oxford Journals, 1920, p. 246.</ref>