The Germanic people who gave their name to the English language were the Angles.
The Angles were one of the main Germanic groups that settled in Britain after the end of Roman rule. Their name is linked to Angeln, a peninsula in present-day Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. In Old English, “Engla land” meant “land of the Angles,” and related forms eventually produced “England” and “English.”
The Angles established kingdoms including Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria, helping make their name a label for the wider population of Germanic settlers. Saxons and Jutes also migrated to Britain, so “Anglo-Saxon” is often used for the broader cultural and political community. That broader term can cause confusion: the word “English” specifically developed from the Angles’ name, not from the Saxons or Jutes.
The Angles were recorded in the first century by the Roman historian Tacitus as the Anglii. Scholars debate whether their tribal name referred to the shape of the Angeln peninsula or another Germanic root.