History of the Isle of Wight inhabitants of southern Britain at this time may indeed have been Germanic, rather than Celtic, which could re-open the possibility of the island's name having Germanic roots. The Romans occupied southern Britain, including the Isle of Wight, for nearly four hundred years. The Romans built no towns on the island, but it became an agricultural centre, and at least seven Roman villas are known. The Roman villas at Newport and Brading have been excavated and are open to the public. When fully developed around 300 AD, Brading was probably the largest on the Island, being a courtyard villa with impressive
Britain (place name) Britain, after which "Britain" became the more commonplace name for the island called Great Britain. After the Anglo-Saxon period, "Britain" was used as a historical term only. Geoffrey of Monmouth in his pseudohistorical "Historia Regum Britanniae" ("c." 1136) refers to the island of Great Britain as "Britannia major" ("Greater Britain"), to distinguish it from "Britannia minor" ("Lesser Britain"), the continental region which approximates to modern Brittany, which had been settled in the fifth and sixth centuries by Celtic migrants from the British Isles. The term "Great Britain" was first used officially in 1474, in the instrument drawing up the proposal