Names of Odin: 134 Names From the Eddas, With Meaning and Source

The medieval sources give Odin well over a hundred names; this page lists 134, each traced to its stanza or chapter. Most come from three places: Odin's own list in the Eddic poem Grímnismál, Snorri's Gylfaginning and the þulur, the verse name lists. The best known are Alfǫðr "Allfather", Grímnir "the masked one", Hárr "High" and Yggr "the terrible".

Every entry below gives the name in normalised Old Norse, what it means, and where it appears, down to the stanza or chapter. The texts were checked in public-domain editions: Hildebrand and Gering's Eddic poems (1922), Finnur Jónsson's Snorra Edda (1907), his Skjaldedigtning B I (1912) for the þula of Odin's names, his Heimskringla (1911) and Sophus Bugge's Hervarar saga (1873). Meanings follow Hjalmar Falk's Odensheite (1924), which gives each name its own numbered article, with Cleasby and Vigfússon's dictionary and Zoëga's dictionary for single words. Where scholars are unsure, we say so: 60 of the 134 meanings are uncertain. For the god himself, start with the Odin entry in our Library, or see where he stands among the Norse gods and goddesses.

Why does Odin have so many names?

Odin gives the first answer himself. In Grímnismál, disguised in King Geirrøðr's hall, he recites his names in stanzas 46–50 and 54. He closes the first run of them like this:

einu nafni hétumk aldrigi, síz meþ folkum fórk.

"I have never been called by a single name since I went among the peoples." (Grímnismál 48)

When he finally reveals who he is, he runs through his names from the newest to the oldest:

Óþinn nú heitik, Yggr áþan hétk, hétumk Þundr fyr þat, Vakr ok Skilfingr, Vǫ́fuþr ok Hróptatýr, Gautr ok Jalkr meþ goþum, Ofnir ok Svafnir, es hykk at orþnir sé allir at einum mér.

"Now I am called Óðinn, before that I was called Yggr, and before that Þundr; Vakr and Skilfingr, Váfuðr and Hroptatýr, Gautr and Jálkr among the gods, Ófnir and Sváfnir. All of them, I think, have come to be from me alone." (Grímnismál 54)

The spelling is the 1922 edition's, which prints þ where most editions write ð, so meþ is með.

In the prose opening of Grímnismál, King Geirrøðr has the disguised Odin, who calls himself Grímnir, set between two fires for eight nights, and the king's ten-year-old son Agnarr brings him a full horn to drink.

Snorri Sturluson puts the same question into the mouth of Gangleri in Gylfaginning 20. After the long list, Gangleri remarks that they have given Odin a huge number of names, and whoever can explain the story behind each one must be very learned. Hárr answers:

Þá svarar Hárr: Mikil skynsemi er at rifja þat vandliga upp; en þó er þér þat skjótast at segja, at flest heiti hafa verit gefin af þeim atburð, at svá margar sem eru greinir tungnanna í veröldunni, þá þykkjask allar þjóðir þurfa at breyta nafni hans til sinnar tungu til ákalls ok bœna fyrir sjálfum sér; en sumir atburðir til þessa heita hafa görzk í ferðum hans, ok er þat fœrt í frásagnir, ok muntu eigi mega fróðr maðr heita, ef þú skalt eigi kunna segja frá þeim stórtíðendum.

"Then Hárr answers: It takes great understanding to go through all that carefully. But the quickest answer is that most of the names were given for this reason: for as many languages as there are in the world, every people felt it had to turn his name into its own tongue, to call on him and pray to him for itself. Some of the names came from events on his travels, and those are told in stories, and you cannot be called a learned man if you cannot tell of those great events." (Gylfaginning 20)

So Snorri gives two reasons: every people translated the name, and every journey added one. Grímnismál shows the second reason at work. Odin says he was Jálkr at Ásmundr's, Kjalarr when he drew a sledge, Þrór at assemblies and Viðurr in battles (st. 49), and Sviðurr and Sviðrir at Søkkmímir's (st. 50).

Poets added more. In Skáldskaparmál 1 Snorri explains that "Týr", used simply as "god", becomes a name of Odin when it is joined to something of his, as in Sigtýr, Hangatýr, Farmatýr and Reiðartýr ("god of victory", "of the hanged", "of cargoes", "of the wagon"). He calls that a kenned heiti. The þula of Odin's names, a list in eight stanzas kept with Skáldskaparmál, holds 113 names, and 52 of them turn up nowhere else in the texts checked here. Many look borrowed. Falk traces Gautr and Skilfingr to the founders of peoples and royal lines, Sigmundr to the hero, and Jálkr and Hrammi to words for a horse and a bear.

The best-known names of Odin

Twelve names come up again and again in retellings. Here is what each one means and where it comes from.

Alfǫðr (Allfather)

Alfǫðr means "father of all". It is the first of the twelve names Odin had in ancient Ásgarðr in Gylfaginning 3, and Snorri explains it in Gylfaginning 9: he is father of all the gods and of men and of everything made by him and his power. It also stands in Grímnismál 48 and the þula, though Falk notes the name is not an old one.

Grímnir (the Masked One)

Grímnir is "the masked one", from gríma, a mask or hood. It is the name Odin uses in disguise at King Geirrøðr's hall, and it gives Grímnismál its title (st. 47 and 49). The shorter Grímr, with the same meaning, opens his list in stanza 46.

Hárr (High)

In Gylfaginning 2 Hárr sits on the lowest of three high seats, with Jafnhárr "Equally high" and Þriði "the Third" above him. The name probably means "High" (Hár) or "grey-haired" (Hárr); Falk says the two are often hard to tell apart in the manuscripts. The related Hávi, "the High One", appears in Hávamál 109.

Yggr (the Terrible)

Yggr means "the terrible one". In Grímnismál 54 Odin says it was his name before he was called Óðinn, and the poet Kormákr uses it in a verse Snorri quotes (Skáldskaparmál 2). The world-tree's name, Yggdrasill, is read as "Yggr's horse", since drasill is a poetic word for a horse.

Valfǫðr (Valfather)

"Father of the slain". Snorri explains in Gylfaginning 20 that he is called Valfǫðr því at hans óskasynir eru allir þeir, er í val falla: because all who fall in battle are his adopted sons. He gives them places in Valhǫll and Vingólf. The seeress addresses him as Valfǫðr in the first stanza of Vǫluspá.

Sigfǫðr (Victory-Father)

"Victory-father", Odin as god of battle. The name appears in Grímnismál 48, Lokasenna 58, Gylfaginning 20 and the þula (st. 4).

Gangleri (the Wanderer)

Probably "wanderer"; Falk read it as "wretched wanderer, beggar". Odin names himself Gangleri in Grímnismál 46, and in Gylfaginning 2 King Gylfi borrows the same name when he comes to Ásgarðr in disguise. For the god on the road, read our piece on Odin the wanderer.

Bǫlverkr (Evil-Doer)

"Evil-doer, worker of harm". It is the name Odin takes when he works for the giant Baugi to win the mead of poetry, a story told in Skáldskaparmál and recalled in Hávamál 109. He lists it in Grímnismál 47 as well.

Hárbarðr (Grey-Beard)

"Grey-beard". In Hárbarðsljóð Odin, disguised as the ferryman Hárbarðr, taunts Þórr across a sound (the name is given in st. 10). It is also in Grímnismál 49.

Vegtamr (the Way-Accustomed)

"The way-accustomed", a wanderer's name. Odin gives it to the dead seeress in Baldrs draumar 6, calling himself the son of Valtamr, and she sees through it in stanza 13.

Jólnir (the Yule One)

Probably "the Yule one", from jól "Yule". Flateyjarbók says he was called Jólnir because the heathen took the name from Yule. Among the texts checked here it appears only in the þula (st. 7).

Hrafnaguð (Raven-God)

"Raven-god". Snorri gives the reason in Gylfaginning 38: his two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, fly over the whole world at dawn and come back by breakfast with the news, and so, in Snorri's words, því kalla menn hann Hrafnaguð: "therefore men call him the raven-god".

All the names of Odin

The full list follows, sorted by what each name says about Odin and alphabetical inside each table. Of the 134 meanings, 34 are well established, 40 are probable and 60 are uncertain, and the wording in each row tells you which: a plain gloss for the first, "probably" for the second, "uncertain; perhaps" for the third. Each name appears once, under its main theme.

War and the slain

The largest group: names for Odin as father of the slain, inciter of battle and god of the hanged.

Names are given in standard normalised Old Norse with ǫ (Alfǫðr; editions in Icelandic spelling write Alföðr). Stanza numbers follow Hildebrand and Gering's Eddic poems (1922); chapter numbers follow Finnur Jónsson's Snorra Edda (1907) and Heimskringla (1911), and Bugge (1873) for Hervarar saga. "Óðins nǫfn" is the þula of Odin's names, cited by stanza in Skjaldedigtning B I (1912). Hávamál is numbered differently in some editions, by one stanza: Hildebrand and Gering's 79 and 143 are 80 and 142 in Neckel's edition. In alphabetical order Þ comes last.

Wisdom and poetry

Names for the sage, the riddle-master and the raven-god.

The wanderer in disguise

Names for Odin on the road: masked, hooded, or travelling under a false name.

Appearance

Names for his eyes, his beard and his face.

Rule and fatherhood

Names for Odin as father, ruler and god of peoples.

Magic and the dead

Names for spells, weather and the dead.

Other names

Names that fit no single theme, most of them because the meaning is too uncertain to sort. Several are suspect: Falk thought a few were misunderstood by whoever compiled the þula, and the table says so where that applies.

Odin's name outside Scandinavia

Óðinn has relatives in the other early Germanic languages. Cleasby-Vigfússon lists the Old English and Old High German forms under Óðinn and notes that Norse has lost the initial w. These are the same name in other languages, not extra heiti.

Old English Wōden appears in the royal genealogies: in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle the line of Ida, under the year 547, runs back to Woden (Parker manuscript, in a later addition; Plummer and Earle's edition, 1892). Old High German Wōdan is written Uuodan twice in the Second Merseburg Charm, and Old Saxon Wōden is the Uuôden renounced together with Thuner and Saxnôte in the Old Saxon baptismal vow (both in Müllenhoff and Scherer's Denkmäler, 1873).

English still carries the name every week. Old English called the day Wōdnesdæg, "Woden's day", and the Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (1898) glosses it as Wednesday and sets it beside Old Norse Óðinsdagr. It is a translation of Latin dies Mercurii: Cleasby-Vigfússon notes that when the weekdays were taken over from Latin, Mercury's day became Woden's day, because Woden was matched with Mercury.

Behind them all, modern scholars reconstruct a Proto-Germanic *Wōðanaz. That form is found in no text, and none of the sources used for this page states it, so take it as background only.

What the name means is not stated in any Norse text. The usual scholarly explanation ties it to the Old Norse word óðr, which Cleasby-Vigfússon gives as "mad, frantic" for the adjective (beside Old English wōd and Gothic wods) and as "mind" and "song, poetry" for the noun. The closest thing to an early gloss comes from Adam of Bremen (Schmeidler's edition, 1917), describing the temple at Uppsala in the eleventh century: Alter Wodan, id est furor, bella gerit hominique ministrat virtutem contra inimicos, "The second, Wodan, that is, fury, wages war and gives men strength against their enemies" (Gesta IV 26).

Frequently asked questions

How many names does Odin have?

This page lists 134 names of Odin, each traced to a stanza or chapter in a medieval text. The þula of Odin's names has 113 of them, Grímnismál 55 and Snorri's Gylfaginning 55, with a lot of overlap. Hjalmar Falk's Odensheite (1924) collects more candidates from the sagas and skaldic verse that have not been checked in a primary text for this page, so the full count could be higher.

What does Allfather mean?

Allfather is Alfǫðr, "father of all". Snorri explains it twice: in Gylfaginning 9 Odin is father of all the gods and of men and of everything made by him and his power, and in Gylfaginning 20 he is father of all the gods. It is the first of the twelve names Odin had in ancient Ásgarðr, according to Gylfaginning 3.

Why is Odin called Grímnir?

Grímnir means "the masked one", from gríma, a mask or hood. It is the name Odin uses in disguise at King Geirrøðr's hall in the Eddic poem Grímnismál, which takes its title from it (stanzas 47 and 49). The shorter Grímr, with the same meaning, is the first name in his list in stanza 46.

What is Odin's real name?

There is no hidden real name in the sources: Óðinn is itself one of his names. In Grímnismál 54 he says he is called Óðinn now, was called Yggr before, and Þundr before that. The usual scholarly explanation ties Óðinn to the Old Norse word óðr, "mad, frantic" as an adjective and "mind, poetry" as a noun. No Norse text says so, but in the eleventh century Adam of Bremen glossed the god of the Uppsala temple as "Wodan, id est furor", "Wodan, that is, fury" (Gesta IV 26).

Is Wednesday named after Odin?

Yes, through his Old English name. Old English called the day Wōdnesdæg, "Woden's day", and Woden is the same name as Old Norse Óðinn, which had Óðinsdagr for the same day. The name translates Latin dies Mercurii, Mercury's day, because Woden was matched with Mercury.

If you came for a name of your own, our guide to Norse mythology names covers the rest of the old names, the free Old Norse translator will turn a modern name into Old Norse, and our Odin pendants, rings and shirts put the Allfather where you can see him.