The name of the Saxons may derive from a kind of knife associated with the ethnos - such a knife has the name seax in Old English, Sax in German, sachs in Old High German, and sax in Old Norse.[7][8] The seax has had a lasting symbolic impact in the English counties of Essex and Middlesex, both of which feature three seaxes in their ceremonial emblem. The names of these counties, along with the names "Sussex" and "Wessex", contain a remnant of the root of the word "Saxon".