Audhild

Old Norse Auðhildr (f.)

The Old Norse female personal name Auðhildr is a compound formed of the first element Auð-, which is obscure in origin but perhaps auðr ‘wealth’ or from the stem in auðinn ‘that befalls one’ and jóð ‘new-born baby’,  combined with the second element -hildr ‘battle’.

A woman by the name of Auðhildr was recorded recorded as having lived in the Orkneys in the early twelfth century.

Auðhildr is believed to be the first element in the medieval field name of Odelgateland in Stainburn, West Yorkshire. It also appears in medieval Lincolnshire and Yorkshire documents. However, some forms of the name may represent the Continental Germanic female name Odil. 

Old Norse Name

Auðhildr

Anglicised Name

Audhild

Gender

Female

Features in Saga

Orkneyinga saga. Ed. Finnbogi Guðmundsson. Íslenzk fornrit XXXIV. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1965, ch. 53.

Ascribed Culture

Collection

Viking Names

Keywords

female_name, Lincolnshire, Orkney, personal-name, West_Yorkshire

Further information

References

Gillian Fellows Jensen, Scandinavian Personal Names in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag (1968), pp. 39, 342, 349.

E.H. Lind, Norsk-isländska dopnamn ock fingerade namn från medeltiden. Uppsala: A.B. Lundequistska Bokhandel (1915), col. 98.