NorseSwedishDanish
Meaning: the gods’ cauldron.
Eskil
| Origin | Old Norse — Áskell, a contraction of Ásketill; Eskil in Sweden, Eskild in Denmark |
|---|---|
| Meaning | Áss (a god) + ketill (cauldron), the vessel usually read as a sacrificial one |
| Pronunciation | ESS-kil, stress on the first syllable, the final l crisp rather than swallowed |
| Popularity | Outside the current U.S. top 100 and unheard there. A quiet but continuous Swedish and Danish name, never common, never gone |
| Variants | Eskild (Danish), Áskell and Ásketill (Icelandic), Askel, Eskell; the bare second element gives Kjell |
| Nicknames | Eski in Sweden; Danish tends to leave it alone |
| Name day | 12 June in the Swedish almanac, for the missionary bishop killed at Strängnäs |
History & meaning
A cauldron sounds like a strange thing to name a child after until you know which cauldron. Ketill is the vessel a sacrifice was cooked in, the centre of the feast that bound a household to its gods, and it was one of the most productive elements in the whole Norse naming stock. On its own it became Ketil and then Kjell. Behind the thunder god it became Þorketill, which Scandinavia wore down to Torkel and England to Thurkill. Behind áss — the divine powers in general — it became Ásketill, and Ásketill collapsed into Áskell and then Eskil. Some readers take ketill as a helmet instead, on the grounds that the two objects share a shape; the cauldron is the mainstream reading and the more interesting one.
Sweden owes a town to the name. An English-born missionary bishop called Eskil was stoned to death near Strängnäs around 1080 after interrupting a pagan sacrifice, and Eskilstuna, some sixty kilometres west, is his house and his name. A second Eskil, archbishop of Lund from 1137, brought the Cistercians into Denmark, corresponded with Bernard of Clairvaux and spent years in exile quarrelling with Valdemar the Great over who outranked whom. A third, Eskil Magnusson, lawspeaker of Västergötland, put up Snorri Sturluson as a houseguest in 1219 — which means the man who wrote down most of what we know about Norse mythology slept under the roof of a name that contains a sacrificial cauldron.
Why parents choose it
It is short, it is spelled the way it sounds in English, and it is old without being loud. Eskil does none of the horned-helmet work that Ragnar and Thor do; it reads as a plain Scandinavian name to Scandinavians and as an interesting unknown quantity everywhere else, which is a rare combination.
Middle names for Eskil
Two clipped syllables take a longer partner well: Eskil Andreas, Eskil Johannes, Eskil Ruben, Eskil Valter. See the middle names guide for the rhythm.
Famous Eskils
Beyond the bishop and the archbishop, Eskil Ervik took the world allround speed skating title for Norway in 2004. The Swedish film and television actor Eskil Hellman and the composer Eskil Hemberg, who ran the Stockholm Royal Opera in the 1980s, kept it in circulation. The name remains commoner on Swedish signposts than on Swedish birth certificates.
Consider instead
Kjell is the cauldron on its own, one syllable and thoroughly Norwegian. Asger keeps the same divine opening and puts a spear after it. Aksel matches the crisp Scandinavian sound with a biblical pedigree instead of a pagan one.