I am curious as to why names like Æthelflæd , Cuthbert , Eadhild, Æthelwulf etc. ceased to be popular. We have names nowadays that have been around for hundreds of years, so why have these names I have mentioned slowly been eased out of use? I know for sure if someone said their name was Eadhild today, they would get some strange looks, while someone called Christopher would probably be able to pass unnoticed in today's world, and back then as well
Those names are Anglo-Saxon, Old English. E. G. Withycombe, The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, has a discussion on pp. xxiv-xxvi, "Effects of the Norman Conquest". The upper classes were pretty much out of Old English names in two or three generations (I presume those who weren't already Normans who came over), and the lower classes followed suit in the 1200s. The exceptions were few: mostly saints, and the Church was starting to encourage using only saints' names (examples adduced: Edward, Edmund, Hilda, Mildred), or less often, names of kings of Wessex (adducing Alfred, Edgar, and Ethelbert). She says that a number of Old English names were replaced by Norman cognates (names of the same ultimate Germanic origin). She describes certain sound change patterns and elision patterns that mutated some Old English names, like Hereweard to Harvard, Regenweald to Reynold (which also became Reginald), Æthelwine to Aylwin.
I could mention Godfrey (a Norman version; the cognate Anglo-Saxon Godafrid was never common), Herbert (ditto, versus Herebeorht), Godwin (Anglo-Saxon Godwine), Robert (she credits both Anglo-Saxon Hreodbeorht as well as Norman Robert (which came from Old German Hrodebert)), Roger (both Anglo-Saxon Hrothgar and Norman Roger (from Old German Hrodgar)), Walter (Norman import; the cognate Anglo-Saxon Wealdhere was never common), Ralf (both from Old Norse and therefore naturalized in England, and Norman). Some of these would no eyebrows nowadays, all had some association with Old English, and they were among the most popular on a list of 13th Century men's names from manoral custumals.
Christopher might have raised eyebrows back in the day: she says it wasn't common until the 15th Century, though she lists examples from the early 1200s. That 13th C male name list, here: 126 Williams, 91 Richards, 70 Johns, 58 Roberts, et cetera ... and 1 Christopher.