The Germanic tribes known as the "Franks" were really a confederation of West Germanic tribes. The three major divisions were the Salians, the Ripuarians, the Hessians. History by Gregory of Tours. Sources attribute the name "Franks" to an ancient chieftain Franko circa 11 BC, when the tribe, then called Sicambri, is said to have been an offshoot of the Scythians or Cimmerians.

In the 3rd to 5th centuries a new confederation of Frankish tribes, from their homelands in what is now western Germany, pushed steadily into Roman Gaul. In 451, Franks and Romans together defeated the Huns at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains (Chalôns), finally ending the Hunnish invasion of Europe.

Firmly established in what would later be called France after them, the Franks were ruled succcessively by the dynasties of the Merovingians and Carolingians. The latter family, begun by Charlemagne's grandfather Pepin, saw the anointing of the Frankish kings also as Holy Roman Emperors.

Sometime around the 9th or 10th centuries occured the Frankish people's wholesale switch from a Germanic to a Romance tongue as their native language. The first documented occurence of Old French appears in the Oaths of Strassbourg in 843 drawn up between two of Charlemagne's grandsons.

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