Loke

History & meaning

Anyone considering this name should know what the figure actually does, so here it is without editorial. Loki travels with the gods and solves their problems, most of which he caused. He shears off Sif's hair and, making amends, wagers his head with the dwarves and comes back with the hammer Mjöllnir; he recovers that hammer when it is stolen; he turns himself into a mare and gives birth to Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse Odin rides. On the other side of the ledger he fathers, on the giantess Angrboða, the wolf Fenrir, the serpent that circles the world, and Hel. He works through every god's private humiliations in turn at Ægir's feast. He puts the mistletoe in the blind Höðr's hand and aims the shot that kills Balder, then takes a giantess's shape and refuses the one tear that would have brought him back. For that the gods bind him under a serpent that drips venom on his face, and at Ragnarök he steers the ship Naglfar against them and dies killing Heimdallr. He is not a mischievous uncle. He is the reason the world ends.

The etymology is honestly open. The old favourite linked the name to logi, "flame", though Snorri himself works against it by making Logi a separate fire-being who out-eats Loki in an eating contest. Another reading takes it from lúka, "to close" or "to finish" — the god who ends things. The reading with the most current traction ties it to Scandinavian dialect words for knots, tangles and spiders' webs, which suits a figure whose method is entanglement. Nothing here is settled. Nor is there any sign that Viking-Age parents used Loki as a personal name, and no evidence that anyone worshipped him; among Norse god names this one is a purely modern arrival, without even the compound tradition that stands behind Thor.

Why parents choose it

Two light syllables, a great deal of charm, and a figure who is never once boring. Some parents want a name with a wink in it, and no European mythology offers a better candidate. The trade is real, though: this is a name that makes a statement in the room before the child does, and he will spend his life fielding the same joke.

Middle names for Loke

A soft ending wants something with more spine behind it: Loke August, Loke Vilhelm, Loke Rafael, Loke Anders. A stately middle name also gives him a formal option later. See the middle names guide.

Famous Lokes

The name has no famous human bearer; its entire public career belongs to the god. Marvel introduced its version in Journey into Mystery in 1962, Tom Hiddleston has played him on screen since 2011, and Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology (2017) put the older, nastier Loki back in front of a general readership. Wagner's Loge in Das Rheingold is a distant relative. Anyone meeting a boy called Loke will think of one of these first.

Consider instead

Sindre is the dwarf smith on the other side of Loki's head-wager, and an entirely ordinary Norwegian name today. Ravn is Danish for raven and gives you darkness with no theology attached. If it is Norse gravity rather than mischief you want, Odin is the deep end.