Gender: Masculine
Origin: Old Norse
Meaning: “war warrior.”
Eng (GUN-ner); Swe (GOON-nahr)
The name is composed of the Old Norse elements, gunnr (war) and arr (warrior).
The name was borne a legendary 5th-century Burgundish king. His exploits appear in the ancient Germanic poetic text Nibelungelied and the Medieval poem Walthurius.
In the Nibelungelied he is mentioned as the King of Worms, the husband of Brunhild and the brother of Kriemhild, whom Siegfried comes to woo.
In some tales, he was betrayed by Attila the Hun and murdered by him.
The same character later appears in JRR Tolkien’s epic poem based on Norse legend, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun.
Gunnar did not appear in the U.S. top 1000 till 1991 coming in as the 705th most popular male names, as of 2009, he was the 551st most popular male name.
Other forms of the name include:
- Gūðhere (Anglo-Saxon)
- Gondicari (Catalan)
- Vintíř (Czech)
- Gunder (Danish/Norwegian/Swedish)
- Gunnar (Danish/English/Estonian/Norwegian/Swedish)
- Gunner (English/Norwegian/Swedish)
- Gundur (Faroese)
- Kunkku (Finnish)
- Kunnari (Finnish)
- Kunto (Finnish)
- Gondicaire (French)
- Gundohar (Frisian/Dutch)
- Gundahar (German: archaic)
- Günter/Günther (German/Hungarian)
- Gunther (German)
- Gunter (German/Polish/Spanish)
- Gonnario/Gonario (Italian)
- Gundicaro (Italian)
- Gundaharius (Late Latin)
- Gunārs (Latvian)
- Gunnarr (Old Norse)
- Guncerz (Polish)
- Gunnár (Sami)
- Gundo (Swedish)
- Gunnerius (Swedish: archaic)
An obscure Italian feminine form is Gonaria
The name was also borne by a medieval Czech saint.
The designated name-days are January 8 (Estonia); January 9 (Sweden) and October 9 (Germany).
The name has been in and out of the U.S. Top 1000 since 1991 and peaked the highest in 2014, coming in as the 382nd most popular male name. It currently comes in as the 470th most popular male name in the United States (2018)
Sources
I’m glad to see more posts! I love this blog! I have always been fascinated by names, their etymology, and how so many names (like John, Ian, Sean, Juan, etc.) are variants of an older name. Keep up the good work!