Brage

History & meaning

Bragi is the god of skaldic poetry: long-bearded, married to Iðunn who keeps the apples that hold off old age, and the one the other gods send forward when something needs saying well. Snorri frames the whole technical manual of Norse poetics, Skáldskaparmál, as Bragi patiently answering the sea-giant Ægir's questions about how verse is made. The noun behind the name, bragr, means both "poetry" and "the best of something", and the bragarfull, Bragi's cup, was the ceremonial draught at a funeral feast over which an heir swore what he would do next. Verse, excellence and a binding promise all sit in the same word.

Then the interesting complication, which is worth stating rather than smoothing over. Bragi Boddason — Bragi the Old — was a real Norwegian poet of the ninth century, the earliest skald whose verse survives. Scholars have argued in every direction about the relationship: that the god is a deified memory of the man, that the man was named after an older god, or that both simply take their name from the noun bragr. Nobody has closed the case. What the argument does establish is that Brage is the odd one out among Norse god names. Where the Viking Age used Thor only inside compounds and never bare, Bragi is on record as an ordinary man's name in the same period — probably because here the common noun came first and the god came out of it.

Why parents choose it

Very few names let you name a child after poetry without saying so out loud. Brage does it in two syllables that a Norwegian, a Swede and an Englishman can all pronounce, and the hard g keeps it from turning soft. In Norway it reads as current rather than antiquarian, which is unusual for a name out of the Eddas.

Middle names for Brage

The open -e ending likes a consonant start after it: Brage Aleksander, Brage Theodor, Brage Kristian, Brage Wilhelm. Anything beginning with a vowel tends to slur into the name. The middle names guide covers the rest.

Famous Brages

Bragi Boddason composed the Ragnarsdrápa in the ninth century and is the first skald we can name. Bragi Ólafsson, the Icelandic novelist and poet, played bass in the Sugarcubes before he wrote books. Between them sits Brageprisen, handed out in Oslo every autumn — a country's main literary award named for the god of poetry is about as good a namesake as a name can have.

Consider instead

For a poet's name with a harder edge, Egil belongs to Egill Skallagrímsson, the most formidable and least pleasant of the skalds. Arne is the same length and register but means eagle and carries no mythology. Soren gives you the Scandinavian sound with an English-speaking world already used to it.