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Old Norse roots
Language contexts for this entry: Faroese, Icelandic
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[ˈiːvar] · Icelandic
01 / Meaning & origin
Ívar is a masculine given name documented in Faroese and Icelandic. English Wiktionary traces it to Old Norse Ívarr.
From Old Norse Ívarr.
02 / Across borders
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03 / By the numbers
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04 / Through time
Passages quoted verbatim from public-domain reference works. They reflect the scholarship of their time, not current consensus, and may use obsolete spellings.
IVAR— “archer”
Ingvar was a terrible name to our Saxon ancestors, when the Danish viking, so called, carried terror to our coasts; but Ivar is not the short for it, but is from _yr_; German, _eibe_; Dutch, _ibe_; English, _yew_; and _har_, a warrior, so that Ivar is the Yew warrior, the bow-bearer, or archer. He is Iver in Danish, and in Scotland and Ireland MacIvor has been adopted as a rendering of one of the old hereditary Keltic names. Ivbald and Ivbert have also been used and cut down…
Ingvar was a terrible name to our Saxon ancestors, when the Danish viking, so called, carried terror to our coasts; but Ivar is not the short for it, but is from _yr_; German, _eibe_; Dutch, _ibe_; English, _yew_; and _har_, a warrior, so that Ivar is the Yew warrior, the bow-bearer, or archer. He is Iver in Danish, and in Scotland and Ireland MacIvor has been adopted as a rendering of one of the old hereditary Keltic names. Ivbald and Ivbert have also been used and cut down to Ibald and Ibert. Ireland had a St. Ivor, or Ivory, who was considered to have prayed away from Fernegenall the _mures maiores qui vulgariter Rati vocantur_ so completely that none survived; but whether he was named by Dane or Kelt does not appear. At any rate, St. Ivory was deemed good to invoke against rats.
Yonge, History of Christian Names (1884), Part VI, Chapter II (Names From Teuton Mythology), Section XIV (Ing—Seaxnot) · Public domain (Project Gutenberg)
People recorded with this given name in Wikidata. Their names may use a different spelling, or include it as a middle or baptismal name.
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06 / Behind the facts
Review status: Source-reported — no editorial review recorded yet. Last data change 2026-10-15.
Wiktionary text: CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikidata: CC0. Commons recordings retain their individual file licences. Complete attribution is available in each group above and alongside each chart.
