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“coal” + “bone”
Language contexts for this entry: Faroese, Norwegian Nynorsk
No sourced pronunciation yet
01 / Meaning & origin
Kolbein is a masculine given name documented in Faroese and Norwegian Nynorsk. English Wiktionary traces it to Old Norse Kolbeinn, from the components “coal” + “bone”.
Meaning: “coal” + “bone”
From Old Norse Kolbeinn, from kol (“coal”) + bein (“bone”) or beinn (“footed”) (cf. berbeinn (“bare-legged”)).
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Documented as a given name in Norwegian Nynorsk.
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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.
KOLBEIN— “cold iron bone”
…The great blast-bellows with which the gods charitably refreshed the horses of the sun, are called in the Eddaic poetry, _isarnkol_, or iron coolers, and there may have been some allusion to this in the names of Kol and Kale, which alternated in one of the old northern families. But as the cooling of iron involved its turning black, _kolbrünn_ meant a black breastplate, and was thus used as a by-name; and it may be in this sense of black that _kol_ enters into the…
…The great blast-bellows with which the gods charitably refreshed the horses of the sun, are called in the Eddaic poetry, _isarnkol_, or iron coolers, and there may have been some allusion to this in the names of Kol and Kale, which alternated in one of the old northern families. But as the cooling of iron involved its turning black, _kolbrünn_ meant a black breastplate, and was thus used as a by-name; and it may be in this sense of black that _kol_ enters into the composition of Kolbjorn, black bear, Kolgrim, Kolgrima; Kolskegg would thus be black-beard; but Kolbein can hardly be black-leg, so, perhaps, it may refer to the bones being strong as wrought iron; and Kolfinn and its feminine are either cool-white or refer to Finn’s strength. Colbrand is in English romance the name of the Danish giant killed by Guy of Warwick, at Winchester; but the Heptarchy displays a very perplexing set of Cols, as they have been modernized, though they used to be spelt Ceol. There were three Ceolwulfs in Bernicia, Mercia, and Wessex; Ceolred in Mercia, Ceolwald in Wessex, Ceolnoth on the throne of Canterbury.…
Yonge, History of Christian Names (1884), Part VI, Chapter VI (Descriptive Names), Section VIII (Appearance) · Public domain (Project Gutenberg)
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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.
