need a norwegian name for your wip?
norwegian characters in english books are not that common, in my experience, but still there's some names i love that i really want to share.
for this i have chosen to lean on the newest baby name trend in norway; finding the oldest most norwegian name in your family tree and naming your kid that. this means more common/popular names like ola, ida, magnus, sunniva, etc will not be listed (though i can make a post like that too, if that's something you want to see).
a lot of these have an origin that traces back to the viking age and i tried to avoid names that came after christianity. you'll see it esp in names that have for example bjørn (from old norse for bear), thor/tor (like the god), -hild (from old norse for battle), -mund (from old norse for protection, i'm pretty sure).
i tried to keep to names that either are very rare (less than 10 people share the first name) or that are old and coming back - you have no idea how many church records i just went through to find some good old ones. hope some of these could come to use for some! feel free to message, send an ask, or leave a reply if you have questions about spelling, pronunciations, or anything else.
so, some examples that i found will be below;
traditionally girl's names;
ragna, gunhild, dagny, frøydis, ylva, solfrid, snefrid, aagot/ågot, thorbjørg, borgny, odlaug, vigdis, valborg, gunlaug, jensine, gunnvor, halldis, undis, rigmor, ellinor, torunn, elida, embla, signe, gørhild, hege, norlaug, thordis, åshild, solveig
traditionally boys names;
hjalmar, njål, brynje, jostein, preben, kyrre, sigvart, gunleif, torjus, oddve, asløv, sverre, vigmund, bjarnar, reidulf, knut, gerhardt, ingeir, guttorm, thormund, ørjan, ådne, aslak, birk, vilje, asbjørn, halvard, ståle, amund
if anyone are interest i can make a more in depth list with the meanings of these names, as i imagine finding the correct definitions with english sources might be difficult for some names. just let me know!
(sidenote, i say "norwegian", but some of these can be used in other scandi countries as well, either with the same spelling or something similar to it.)
scandis, feel free to add your favourite really old people names in replies!<3
