Heri

Heri

Héri is a male given name in the Faroe Islands. The earliest mention of the name is in the Flateyjarbók (in which the spelling is 'Héri'), partly concerning the Viking age history of the Faroe Islands, written around 1380 in Iceland. In this story Heri Sigmundsson is the youngest son of Sigmundur Brestisson. Heri is a very common name in the Faroe Islands today, probably not surviving as a traditional name, but more likely revived and put into use again in later times from historical accounts like Flateyjarbók.

There are two explanations for the meaning of the name:

• The more likely is that it means 'hare' (lepus europaeus), for which the common modern Icelandic name is still Héri. In the Faroes the name is Hara, but it is probably a Norwegian loanword taken into the Faroese language at the time of the introduction of the hare to the Faroe Islands. There is one problem with this explanation. Flateyjarbók was written by men who had clearly never been to the Faroe Islands and neither Heri nor Héri seem to have ever been given names in Iceland (so this is also connected to the problem of whether or not Flateyjarbók is a reliable historical account).
• The less likely is that Heri is an abbreviation of Norse names beginning with Her-, like Herálfur, Herleifur, Hergeir etc. Very many Faroese and Icelandic given male names have common abbreviations ending on an -i, but this explanation does not account for the original spelling with the accent over the 'e', Héri.