Old Norse Orthography - Anglicized Spelling

Anglicized Spelling

For the convenience of English writers and readers the Old Norse characters not used in English are commonly replaced with English ones. This can lead to ambiguity and confusion. Diacritics may be removed (á → a, ö → o). The following character conversions also take place:

• ø → o
• œ → o, oe
• æ → ae
• þ → th
• ð → th, d, dh

Another common convention in English is to drop consonant nominative endings:

• Egill → Egil
• Yggdrasill → Yggdrasil
• Gunnarr → Gunnar
• Sveinn → Svein
• Freyr → Frey
• Hildr → Hild

Sometimes a j is dropped after ey.

• Freyja → Freya

Other quirks sometimes seen include adding a Latin -a suffix to the names of goddesses.

• Frigg → Frigga
• Iðunn → Iduna

Obviously the various permutations allow for many possible spellings for a given name.

Some authors, for example, replace þ with th and ð with th, dh or d but keep the accents; others may not replace ǫ with ö but prefer o.

Thus, in addition to the various versions below, the name of Hǫðr could come out as:

• Hoðr, Hödhr, Hödr, Höd, Höð, Hoð