← Back to Victorian and Belle Époque
Boy · Old English
Godwine
Say it: GOD-win-eh
Meaning
From Old English god 'god' or gōd 'good' (the spelling of names cannot tell them apart) and wine 'friend'.
Likelythe main view, with some doubt.
Borne by the powerful earl whose son Harold became king in 1066; it lived on as a medieval given name and later as a surname.
Its wave through time
No birth counts are recorded for this name in the records loaded here: it has been given to fewer than five babies a year, or not at all, since records began.
Through the ages
Used by
The family of the name
Other spellings: Godwin
Famous bearers
- Godwin, earl of Wessex
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Anglo-Saxon charters, chronicles and church records
- The Domesday Book (1086) source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.