Geir information

Geir
Origin
Word/name	Old Norse
Meaning	spear
Region of origin	Norway

Geir is a masculine name commonly given in Norway and Iceland. It is derived from Old Norse geirr "spear", a common name element in Germanic names in general, from Proto-Germanic *gaizaz (whence also Old High German gêr, Old English gâr, Gothic gaisu).^[1]

The popularity of the given name peaked in Norway during the 1950s to 1980s, with above 2% of newly born boys named Geir during the late 1960s to 1970s. As of 2014, the National statistics office of Norway recorded 22,380 men with the given name, or 0.9% of total male population.^[2] The Old Norse spelling Geirr is also rarely given (89 individuals in Norway as of 2014).^[2] Geir is also rarely given in Sweden and Denmark.^[3]

While Geir was practically unused as a given name prior to the 1930s (and since the 2000s), -geir is the second element in a number of given names inherited from Old Norse, the most popularly given being Asgeir and Torgeir. These are a remnant of a much larger group of names including the geirr element in Old Norse.^[4]

^ Latin gaesum, gaesus, Greek γαῖσον was the term for the lance of the Gauls. The Avestan language has gaêçu "lance bearer" as a likely cognate. The Celtic word is found e.g. in the name of the Gaesatae. Old Irish has gae "spear". Proto-Germanic *gaizaz would derive from proto-Indo-European language *ghaisos, although loan from Celtic has also been considered, in which case the PIE form would be *gaisos. The Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch has *g'haisos (with a palatal velar aspirate), discounting the Avestan form in favour of (tentatively) comparing Sanskrit hḗṣas- "projectile". The form gaois is read in an early Runic inscriptions on the so-called Mos spearhead, dated to the 3rd century, found in Stenkyrka, Gotland. Sven Birger Fredrik Jansson, The runes of Sweden, Bedminster Press, 1962, pp. iii-iv.
^ ^a ^b Statistisk Sentralbyrå, National statistics office of Norway, ssb.no.
^ Sweden: Det finns 313 män som har förnamnet Geir. Av dessa har 196 namnet Geir som tilltalsnamn. scb.se (as of 2014). Denmark: Mænd med navnet 'Geir' 2014: 79, 2015: 82. dst.dk.
^ nordicnames.de, citing Kristoffer Kruken, Ola Stemshaug, Norsk Personnamnleksikon (1995), Per Vikstrand, Förkristna sakrala personnamn i Skandinavien, Studia anthroponymica Scandinavica 27 (2009), 5–31, Lena Peterson, Nordiskt runnamnslexikon (2002).

[1] Latin gaesum, gaesus, Greek γαῖσον was the term for the lance of the Gauls. The Avestan language has gaêçu "lance bearer" as a likely cognate. The Celtic word is found e.g. in the name of the Gaesatae. Old Irish has gae "spear". Proto-Germanic *gaizaz would derive from proto-Indo-European language *ghaisos, although loan from Celtic has also been considered, in which case the PIE form would be *gaisos. The Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch has *g'haisos (with a palatal velar aspirate), discounting the Avestan form in favour of (tentatively) comparing Sanskrit hḗṣas- "projectile". The form gaois is read in an early Runic inscriptions on the so-called Mos spearhead, dated to the 3rd century, found in Stenkyrka, Gotland. Sven Birger Fredrik Jansson, The runes of Sweden, Bedminster Press, 1962, pp. iii-iv.

[SSB-2] Statistisk Sentralbyrå, National statistics office of Norway, ssb.no.

[3] Sweden: Det finns 313 män som har förnamnet Geir. Av dessa har 196 namnet Geir som tilltalsnamn. scb.se (as of 2014). Denmark: Mænd med navnet 'Geir' 2014: 79, 2015: 82. dst.dk.

[4] rdicnames.de, citing Kristoffer Kruken, Ola Stemshaug, Norsk Personnamnleksikon (1995), Per Vikstrand, Förkristna sakrala personnamn i Skandinavien, Studia anthroponymica Scandinavica 27 (2009), 5–31, Lena Peterson, Nordiskt runnamnslexikon (2002).

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