863: Historical Names (bjørn & loðbrók) Apr 19, 2017

Historically names were more indicative of what someone did, or how or where he lived than they are today. Surnames aren't created too often anymore, and now many are dying out quite rapidly, but many people for a long period in history would have had far more personal names than now. Because of this practice, names were quite often just words, or were conventional in some way but were either once words that could have morphed or been abandoned in a modern lexicon, or were words from other languages, often from the Bible. The Scandinavian name 'Bjørn' is somewhat rare for historical forenames as it did and continues to mean 'bear'.  The father of a famous Bjørn, legendary Ragnar Loðbrók (who may or may not have been real) did not inherit his surname from his father, but instead from his pants. There is some debate about where his name really comes, but many people have translated 'Loðbrók' as 'rough pants' since he supposedly wore pants of cow-hide dipped in tar. The element 'brók' still appears in words today, such as the Icelandic 'nábrók', which are pants made out of human skin after that person died. Coins would be placed in what is translated as 'death-pants' for good (financial) luck.