Norwegian2 syllablesOld Norse
Meaning: ever-ruler; sole ruler.
Eirik
Two spellings, one name. Erik is the pan-Scandinavian version; Eirik is the Norwegian one, and it is the spelling attached to the man who talked people into moving to Greenland.
| Origin | Norwegian — the Norwegian spelling of Erik, from Old Norse Eiríkr |
|---|---|
| Meaning | Second element ríkr, ruler or mighty; the first is read either as ei, ever or always, giving "eternal ruler", or as einn, one, giving "sole ruler" |
| Pronunciation | AY-rik — the ei is the vowel in "day", the stress on the first syllable |
| Popularity | Outside the current U.S. top 100; the Erik spelling has some American history, Eirik almost none, while in Norway both are ordinary |
| Variants | Erik (Swedish, Danish, pan-Scandinavian), Eric and Erick (English), Eiríkur (Icelandic), Eerik (Finnish) |
| Nicknames | Eiri and Rikke are heard in Norway; most bearers use the whole name |
| Exploration note | Eirik the Red founded the Norse colony in Greenland; his son Leif sailed on to North America |
History & meaning
The back half of the name is easy. Ríkr means ruler, powerful, mighty, and it is the same ancient element that closes Frederick, Roderick and Heinrich; it goes back to a Celtic word for king that Germanic borrowed early. The front half is the argument. Read ei as the adverb meaning ever or always and you get an eternal ruler; read it as a worn form of einn, one, and you get a sole ruler, a man with no co-king. Norse kings usually had co-kings, so the second reading has a certain political bite to it. Dictionaries give both, and neither is provable.
What the name unquestionably has is a biography. Eirik Thorvaldsson, called the Red for his hair and possibly his temper, was outlawed from Iceland around 982 after a run of killings, spent his three years of exile mapping a huge empty coast to the west, and then sold it — the name Greenland was, the sagas suggest, a marketing decision. Settlers followed him in the mid-980s and the colony lasted some four hundred years. His son Leif pushed further west and made landfall in North America around the year 1000, a claim confirmed when the Norse site at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland was excavated in the 1960s. Earlier still, Eirik Blodøks — Bloodaxe — was a son of Harald Fairhair, briefly king of Norway and later king in Northumbria.
Why parents choose it
Because it is Erik with a passport. Families with Norwegian roots often want the spelling their grandparents used, and Eirik delivers that at the cost of one extra letter and a lifetime of mild correction. It is short, unambiguous in pronunciation, and it survives contact with English intact.
Middle names for Eirik
Two syllables ending in a hard k take a longer, softer middle: Eirik Andreas, Eirik Magnus, Eirik Johan, Eirik Emil. The middle names guide covers pairings for short first names.
Famous Eiriks
Eirik Verås Larsen won Olympic gold in the single kayak at Athens in 2004 and again at London in 2012. Eirik Glambek Bøe is half of Kings of Convenience, the Bergen duo whose quiet guitar records found an audience far outside Norway. Between them and the Greenland settler, the name covers a fair spread of Norwegian output.
Consider instead
Erik is the same name in the spelling the rest of the world already knows. Leif belongs to the son and means heir or descendant. Harald is the other great Norwegian king-name and is still on the throne.