Survey of English Place-Names

Historical Forms

• Soninges 1086 DB

• Sunnings 1146 Sar

• Sunningas 1146 Holtzmann 15th

• Sunninges 1167 P

• Sunningis 1176 P

• Sunnigges 1198 ib

• Suniges 1185 RR

• Sunninches c.1180 Abingdon c.1240

• Sunning c.1200 RSO 13th

• Suni'g, Sunni'g 1275–6 RH

• Sonning, Sunninge 1284 AnnMon

• Sonnynge 1316 FA

• Sonnyg 1327 SR

• Sunnyng 1339 Pat

Etymology

'Sunna's people', v. -ingas . The pers.n. is only recorded in p.ns.For a lost place called Soninges in K v. PN-ing 15. The Berks name occurs as that of a district in BCS 34, the earliest charter of the monastery at Chertsey Sr, which must have been drawn up before 675 (Sr xvi). This charter states that the land of the monastery extends 'usque ad terminum alterius prouinciae quae appellatur Sunninges'. The people called Sunningas have given name to Sonning and to Sunninghill (88), and it is possible that their 'pro- vince' included the whole of Berkshire east of Reading (v. Stenton, Anglo -Saxon England 298, and Introd.).

The earliest mention of the place is in a charter of 964 in Hickes Thesaurus (I, p. 140), one of the signatures to which runs Osulf Sunnungnensis episcopus. 'Florence of Worcester' (I, p. 236, c. 1225) has a list of bishops headed Nomina præsulum Sunnungnensis ecclesiæ , and it is possible that this unusual form is derived from the charter in Hickes, which is a Worcester document. For the bishopric, v. Introd.