The region received its name after the Severians, an East Slavic tribe which inhabited the territory in the late 1st millennium A.D. Their main settlements included the present-day cities of Novhorod-Siverskyi, Chernihiv (Chernigov), Putyvl (Putivl), Hlukhiv (Glukhov), Liubech, Kursk, Rylsk, Starodub, Trubchevsk, Sevsk, Bryansk, and Belgorod.