Boy · Old Norse
Gunnar
Say it: GOON-nar
Meaning
From Old Norse gunnr 'battle' and herr 'army, warrior'.
Certainscholars agree on this meaning.
Common in the sagas and widely revived across Scandinavia in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Its wave through time
Popular now
In the United States
- 15,717 babies given this name since 1893
- At its height in 2015, about 1 in 2,300 boys
- 536 babies in 2020
Through the ages
- The Viking and Anglo-Saxon Age700 to 1100
- The High and Late Middle Ages1100 to 1450
- Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
- The Modern Age1880 to today
Used by
The family of the name
| Old Norse | Gunnarr |
|---|---|
| German | Gunther |
Famous bearers
- Gunnar of Hlíðarendi, hero of Njáls saga
- Gunnar Gjúkason, Burgundian king in the Völsung legend
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- The Icelandic sagas and other Old Norse literature
- Viking Age runestone inscriptions
- National birth statistics of European countries source
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today 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.