ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2466
http://www.s-gabriel.org/2466
************************************

17 Mar 2002
From: "Brian M. Scott" 


Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel!

You asked whether <Njord> would have been used as an Old
Norse name in the period between 1050 and 1300.  You said
that you wanted to use it with a byname signifying a
relationship to a god or gods or a connection to an old
temple or house of worship, e.g., something meaning 'from
the temple of God' or 'from the house of God'.  You
mentioned that you had been using the byname <Salrognvaldar>
under the impression that it meant 'from the temple' and
asked for information about its actual meaning.


<Njord> is a modern Norwegian form of the Old Norse name
<Nio,r{dh}r>.  (Here <o,> stands for an <o> with a reversed
comma hanging from its lower edge, an Old Norse letter that
is no longer used; <{dh}> stands for the letter edh, which
looks like a reversed <6> with a small bar through the
upright.)  As you may know, <Nio,r{dh}r> is the name of one
of the Old Norse gods.  Unfortunately, until modern times it
was apparently not used by real people. [1, 2]  In
particular, it would not be good historical re-creation for
your period.

We looked for similar names that actually were used in your
period, but we found nothing very close.  Perhaps the
closest is <Nerei{dh}r>.  It did not become common until
about 1300, but it is found as early as 800 or so and again
as the name of a man who died in 1134. [4, 5]  It was
pronounced roughly \NEH-raydh(r)\, where \dh\ stands for the
sound of <th> in <this> and <bathe>, and \(r)\ represents a
very lightly articulated trill.  By the end of your period
it was probably closer to \NEH-reedh(r)\.


There are several ways in which you could express some sort
of relationship with a god or place of worship.  For
example, the primary sense of the Old Norse word <hof> was
'heathen temple or holy place'.  It is found as an element
of many very old Norwegian place-names, often in combination
with the name of a god.  Among the place-names of this type
are some that go back to Old Norse <O/{dh}inshof>,
<{TH}o/rshof>, <Freyshof>, <Niar{dh}arhof>, <Ullinshof>, and
<Vi/{dh}arshof>, containing respectively the names of the
gods <O/{dh}inn>, <{TH}o/rr>, <Freyr>, <Nio,r{dh}>, <Ullinn>
(another name for <Ullr>), and <Vi/{dh}arr>. [6, 7]  (Here a
slash stands for an acute accent over the preceding letter,
and {TH} stands for the letter thorn, which looks like a <b>
superimposed on a <p> in such a way that their loops
coincide.)

Any of these place-names could form the basis for a locative
byname indicating place of residence.  A man named
<Nerei{dh}r> who lived at a place called <Niar{dh}arhof>
'Nio,r{dh}'s temple or holy place', for instance, might have
been known as <Nerei{dh}r at Niar{dh}arhofi>.  If he lived
by a place called <{TH}o/rshof>, the corresponding byname
would be <at {TH}o/rshofi>, and so on. [8, 9]  As an
example, the byname <at Niar{dh}arhofi> is pronounced
roughly \aht NYAR-dhar-hoh-vee\, with \Y\ as in <yes>, not
as in <by>, and a secondary stress on \hoh\; we'll be happy
to give you any other pronunciations in which you may be
interested. 

If you'd prefer something simpler along the same lines, you
might consider <at Hofi>, pronounced roughly \aht HOH-vee\,
from the common simple place-name <Hof>. [9, 10]


A more direct approach is to use the byname <prestr>
'priest'.  This was used in your period both as an
occupational description and as a nickname for men who were
not priests; an example of the latter sort is <Einarr
prestr> 1239, who was actually a king's man, one of the
royal bodyguard. [11]  The same byname was also used in
front of the given name: <Prest-Ioan> 1154 'Priest-John'
also appears as <Ion prestr>, and we also found <Prest-Oddr>
ca.1170 and <Prest-Valldi Ma/s son> in the 1180s.  A more
specific variation on this theme is the byname of
<{TH}orsteinn faraprestr> in the 1270s; it means 'itinerant
priest'.  A rather different sort of relationship to a place
of worship is implied by the byname <prestz son> 'priest's
son'; we found two examples from the second half of the 13th
century and quite a few more from the early 14th century, so
it would be entirely suitable for the end of your period.
Finally, we found one instance of the preposed byname
<Kirkiu-> 'Church-', <Kirkiu-Gri/mr {TH}orgils son>, in the
1160s. [12]

All of the bynames mentioned in the previous paragraph have
Christian connotations.  We did find bynames referring
directly to pagan religion, but they seem to have gone out
of use after the tenth century.  This is not surprising,
since by your period both Norway and Iceland were officially
Christian. [13]  The best-attested of these earlier bynames
seems to be <freysgo{dh}i> 'priest of Freyr'; at least four
examples are known from the tenth century. [14]  We doubt
that it would be a good choice even at the very beginning of
your period, but it would be an excellent choice a century
or so earlier.  (We should probably mention that although
the word <go{dh}i> continued in use in Iceland in your
period, it no longer meant '(pagan) priest' but rather a
kind of local chieftain. [15]) 


We have not found any evidence of a byname <Salrognvaldar>.
It appears to contain a variant of the given name
<Ro,gnvaldr>, which was common in Western Scandinavia from
at least the ninth century on. [16]  Assuming that it is not
simply made up or misremembered, our best guess is that it
is actually a combination of this given name and a preposed
byname <Sal->, from Old Norse <salr> 'a hall; a structure
with one or more rooms'. [17, 18]  The exact significance of
this hypothetical byname is obscure, however, and the result
is a full name, <Sal-Ro,gnvaldr> 'Hall-Ro,gnvaldr'.  Such a
combination would not have used as a byname.


To sum up, the given name <Nio,r{dh}r>, the Old Norse form
of <Njord>, seems to have been only a god's name in your
period.  We did find a somewhat similar name, <Nerei{dh}r>,
that was definitely used by human beings.  There are several
ways to express a connection with a god or gods or a place
of worship.  In your period the most direct ones are
Christian in character, but various bynames indicating
residence at an old place of pagan worship are also
authentic; we gave several examples of both sorts earlier in
this letter.  We can find no evidence of a byname
<Salrognvaldar>. 


Arval Benicoeur, Gunnvo,r silfraha/rr, Tangwystyl verch
Morgant Glasvryn, Lindorm Eriksson, Will Dekne, and Aryanhwy
merch Catmael also contributed to this letter.  We hope that
it has been useful and that you will not hesitate to write
again if you have further questions.

For the Academy,

Talan Gwynek
9 March 2002

=====
References and Notes:

[1] Kruken, Kristoffer, ed.  Norsk personnamnleksikon.  2nd
ed. (Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget, 1995); s.n. <Njord>.

[2] Lind, E.H.  Norsk-Isla"ndska Dopnamn ock Fingerade Namn
fra*n Medeltiden (Uppsala & Leipzig: 1905-1915, sup. Oslo,
Uppsala and Kobenhavn: 1931); s.n. <Nio,r{dh}r>.  (Here <a">
stands for a-umlaut, and <a*> stands for an <a> with a small
circle directly above it.)  Lind did not classify the name
as mythological, because he thought that most of its
occurrences in place-names referred to real people, but this
view is not held by later authorities. [3]  So far as we can
tell, he had no direct evidence for its use by real people.

[3] Sandnes, Jo|rn, & Ola Stemshaug.  Norsk
Stadnamnleksikon, 4th ed. (Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget, 1997);
s.nn. <Narvik>, <Nervika>, <Nj{ae}rheim>, <Norderhov>,
<N{ae}ro|y(a)>.  Here <o|> stands for an <o> with a slash
through it, and <{ae}> represents the a-e-digraph, a single
letter made by squashing together an <a> and an <e> to share
a common upright. 

[4] Lind, op. cit., s.n. <Neri{dh}r>.

[5] Sandnes & Stemshaug, op. cit., s.n. <Neri(d)>, which
notes that after about 1300 <Neri{dh}r> replaced
<Nerei{dh}r> as the usual spelling.

[6] Ibid. s.v. <hov>.

[7] Foote, P.G., & D.M. Wilson.  The Viking Achievement
(London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1980); p.398.  Foote and Wilson
point out that the word <hof> is now thought to mean a
farmstead at which it was customary to gather for cult
celebrations, not to a special building set aside for
religious purposes.  The only actual pagan temple known in
Scandinavia was in Uppsala, Sweden, though there may have
been others.

[8] The change from <Niar{dh}arhof> to <Niar{dh}arhofi> is
required by Old Norse grammar: the object of the preposition
<at> used in this way must be in the dative case.

[9] Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson, and William A.
Craigie.  An Icelandic-English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1957); s.v. <at>.  The discussion and the specific
citation <at Hofi> show that <at> is probably the most
idiomatic choice of preposition with place-names of this
type. 

[10] Sandnes & Stemshaug, op. cit., s.n. <Hove>.

[11] Lind, E.H.  Norsk-Isla"ndska Personbinamn fra*n
Medeltiden (Uppsala: 1920-21); s.v. <Prestr>.

[12] Ibid. s.vv. <Prest-Io/an>, <Prest-Oddr>,
<Prest-Valldi>, <Faraprestr>, <Prestz son>, <Kirkiu-Gri/mr>.

[13] Foote & Wilson, op. cit., p. 43.

[14] Lind, Norsk-Isla"ndska Personbinamn, s.v.
<Freysgo{dh}i>.

[15] Foote & Wilson, op. cit., pp. 132-3.

[16] Lind, Norsk-Isla"ndska Dopnamn, s.v. <Ro,gnvaldr>.

[17] Cleasby et al., op. cit., s.v. <salr>.

[18] Sandnes & Stemshaug, op. cit., s.v. <sal>.