Albion

The oldest recorded name for the island of Britain, appearing in Roman documents several centuries before Christ. The name may originate with the Latin "albus", meaning "white", referring to the White Cliffs of Dover.

According to Geoffrey of Monmouth and other chroniclers, Albion was populated by a race of giants, whom Brutus conquered. Brutus then gave the island his own name: Britain. As for the race of giants, we find in Palamedes that they were descended from Albine, an exiled Syrian princess, after whom the island was named. The fourteenth-century Short Metrical Chronicle credits the name to the giant Albin, who, like Albine, fathered the giant race conquered by Brutus.