NorseNorwegian2 syllables
Meaning: the silent god who avenges Odin.
Vidar
| Origin | Old Norse — Víðarr, the name of a god; ordinary given name in Norway and Sweden today |
|---|---|
| Meaning | Disputed. Most often read as víðr (wide) + the -arr that stands for herr, warrior — so wide-ruling warrior |
| Pronunciation | VEE-dar, two syllables, stress in front, the d soft in Norwegian mouths |
| Popularity | Outside the current U.S. top 100 and rare there. In Norway it is a perfectly ordinary name, strongest for men born between 1950 and 1980 |
| Variants | Víðarr (Old Norse), Vidar (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish), Víðar (Icelandic) |
| Nicknames | Vid, Vidde in Norwegian usage |
| In myth | Son of Odin and the giantess Gríðr; Snorri calls him the silent god and rates him second in strength only to Thor |
History & meaning
Víðarr says nothing in the entire mythology, and that is the point of him. He is Odin’s son by a giantess, he lives in a place of tall grass and brushwood, and he exists in the sources almost entirely for one act. At Ragnarök the wolf Fenrir swallows Odin, and Vidar steps forward, plants one foot on the wolf’s lower jaw — the shoe made from every scrap of leather ever trimmed off a sole and discarded, which is why the Eddic material tells you to throw those scraps away carefully — takes hold of the upper jaw and tears the animal apart. Then the world burns, and Vidar is one of the handful of gods who walk out of it into the next one. Silence, patience, and survival: an unusual set of virtues for a Norse deity.
The etymology is less certain than the story. The common reading takes víðr, wide, with the same -arr that ends Steinar and Ingvar, giving something like the wide-ruling warrior; other scholars have proposed quite different first elements, and none of it is settled. What is clear is the modern usage. As the Norse notes on this site set out, Viking-Age parents did not hand children a god’s name outright — bare deity names as given names are a nineteenth-century development, part of the national romantic revival. Vidar is now thoroughly ordinary in Norway, which is a strange fate for a god who never speaks.
Why parents choose it
It is two soft syllables, spelled exactly as it sounds in English, and it belongs to a mythology figure nobody has merchandised. Parents who want Norse without the hammer and the helmet tend to land here. It is also one of very few Norse names that an American teacher will read correctly at first sight.
Middle names for Vidar
Soft and open, so a middle with some consonant weight balances it: Vidar Magnus, Vidar Kristoffer, Vidar Leif, Vidar August. The middle names guide works through the rhythm.
Famous Vidars
Vidar Riseth played in midfield for Celtic and for Norway through the late 1990s. Vidar Sandbeck wrote songs and novels out of Hedmark and became one of Norway’s most-recorded lyricists. Vidar Theisen presented the weather on Norwegian television for so long that his name became a shorthand for the forecast itself.
Consider instead
Odin is the father rather than the son, with all the noise that brings. Vegard is the same soft Norwegian register without the mythology. Steinar shares the ending and the country and swaps the god for a rock.