The paper explores the »power« names have over historians: they influence historical interpretations and shape academic premises. This article uses the historio-linguistic database »Nomen et gens« (NeG) to investigate the interpretation of early medieval names as historical sources. Its objective is twofold: the inquiry aims to revise the interpretation of names as ethnic markers via the case study of the so called »Anglo-Saxon mission« and thereby to present NeG and its possibilities to the medievalist community. The database NeG is a result of the eponymous research project (www.neg.uni-tuebingen.de), reaching back to the first dawns of digital humanities in the 1970s. Its origins are set in the fierce debate on ethnic identity of that time, addinganonomastic dimension to this discussion: Do specific names indicate specific ethnicities? While originally intended to provide a sound data stock for ethnic interpretations of names, NeG quickly became part of the academic deconstruction of ethnicity as an analytical tool. Today it provides a unique – and growing – data of more than 17.250 single references to names in early medieval sources between 400– 800, assigned to 6.500 historical persons, representing 3.100 early medieval names. The paper starts with the original question of NeG concerning names and ethnicity. A first result is predictable in light of the outcome of the debate on ethnicity: ethnic labels like e. g. »goth« or »franc« are attributed only to a very small number of persons, in total 273 out of 6.528. The impact of this at first glance quite unsurprising result is shown by a reconsideration of the so called »Anglo-Saxon mission«: while seen as one of the driving forces of Frankish history in the 8th century, this »mission« is in urgent need of a reevaluation. First of all Anglo-Saxon identity is a construct of modern scholarship, as has been stressed in the last decades. Moreover, the extensive data provided by NeG comprises only 20 persons that were denominated with one of those labels usually perceived as Anglo-Saxon like »Angles« or – even more specific – »Mercians« or »Bernicians«. No more than 8 of these persons were clerics acting in the eastern borderlands of Frankish power in the 8th century, and only 3 of them did use names that would philologically be described as anglic. Only an insignificant small number of »Anglo-Saxons« in the Frankish world can thus be identified. Apparently such an attribution was of very little interest to contemporary authors when writing about single individuals. Ethnic labels like »the Franks« did matter ona higher level of group identities. But historians should cease assigning ethnic labels to persons based on their names and should stop drawing conclusion from these ascriptions. Just as the »Anglo-Saxon« mission was no mission in its most essential meaning, it was not »Anglo-Saxon«. A re-evaluation could shed new light on the phenomenons of cultural entanglement in the 8th century.