Viking Nicknames: Real Bynames and What They Meant

By Cedrick Reese, Norse Name Generator

Short answer: Viking nicknames were real, mostly unflattering labels that other people gave you, like Eystein Foul-Fart or Ketil Flat-Nose. They were added to a name because there were only so many names to go around.

• Sourced
• Updated November 1, 2026

Real Viking nicknames from the sagas, sorted by type, with the stories behind them and a way to build your own.

Why Vikings had nicknames

Most people in the Icelandic sagas had one. Medievalists 2025 says the Family Sagas name over 7,000 individuals and that most of them had a nickname. The reason is simple. Norse people used patronymics instead of surnames, and the stock of given names was small, so a nickname helped tell people apart (Medievalists 2014, Aberdeen).

Paul Peterson collected 517 nicknames from Landnámabók, the Book of Settlements, which covers the settling of Iceland in the 9th and 10th centuries. The lists below come from the pieces that draw on his work, plus Viking Answer Lady and the National Museum of Denmark. His 2015 dissertation is listed at the University of Minnesota.

Who gave them out

Other people, and mostly unflattering

Not the person who carried it. Viking Answer Lady says bynames were descriptive nicknames given by others, rarely used by the person themselves and almost never said to their face. Friends or enemies usually handed them out, and most were unflattering. Peterson found most nicknames were negative or insulting, though it is hard to tell whether they were given while the person was alive (Viking Answer Lady, Medievalists 2014).

Nicknames could change

They could also change. Medievalists 2025 says some people had several nicknames, and that a nickname could change over a lifetime or after death. A man named Hroi had five:

• the Wealthy
• the Foolish
• the Elegant
• the Wise
• Mishap

A nickname could even replace a given name. Diana Whaley, quoted by Aberdeen, gives a man named Thorgrim who became known as Snorri.

Nicknames were not always accurate

And they were not always accurate. A saga calls Thord the Low “the tallest of men” (Medievalists 2014). The National Museum of Denmark adds that later writers may have been “extremely imaginative with bynames,” and that it is unknown whether bynames like Bluetooth and Fairhair were used in those kings’ own lifetimes (Danish Museum).

Nicknames about looks and clothes

Physical characteristics head Viking Answer Lady’s list of byname types, and they are the easiest to understand. Old Norse words are shown where the source gave them.

Nicknames about habits and temper

Nicknames with a story behind them

Some nicknames survive with a short explanation attached. Peterson’s abstract notes that these anecdotes sometimes build out a character’s biography or shape the plot. Many others survive with no explanation at all, as Mental Floss points out. For the TV series’ characters, see Vikings TV show names.

Women’s nicknames

Far fewer survive. Medievalists 2025 says about three percent of known nicknames belong to women, going by one count, and that the origins of women’s nicknames are usually unrecorded.

Medievalists.net also lists kinder women’s nicknames recorded without a woman’s name attached: the Fair (væna), Island Flame (eykindill), Light of the Land (landaljómi), Fresh Snow (mjǫll), Star (stjarna) and Sunbeam (geisli).

The crude ones

Some Viking nicknames are rude, and the sources print them as they are. Mental Floss gives Kolbeinn Butter Penis and Eysteinn Foul-Fart as examples and gives no explanation for either. Medievalists.net and the University of Aberdeen both name Eystein Foul-Fart, and Medievalists.net uses Butter Penis in its headline. Keep in mind Peterson’s finding that most recorded nicknames were negative or insulting, so these are the extreme end of a common pattern, not a strange exception (Mental Floss, Medievalists 2014, Medievalists 2025, Aberdeen).

Build your own Viking nickname

A Viking nickname sat after the given name and described the person from the outside. Two shapes show up again and again in the tables above. The made-up examples below follow those shapes and are not records of real people.

Two tips from the sources. Nicknames came from friends and enemies, so ask what a rival would say about your character in the hall. And a kind nickname usually came with a reason, like Child-Sparer, so a flattering one reads best when the story earns it. The trait surname generator builds hyphenated nicknames like these, and the surname generator has an epithet option. For the patronymic part of a full name, see Viking last names.

These are English renderings of Old Norse words, and sources sometimes differ on the English, as with Ship-Breast and Ship-Chest, or Hairy Breeches and Shaggy Trousers. If you need the exact Old Norse form for a project, check it against Peterson’s dissertation.

Frequently asked questions

Keep reading

• Viking Last Names: What Real Norse Surnames Looked Like
• Vikings TV Show Names: What They Mean and Who Was Real
• Real Old Norse Names and Their Meanings
• Trait surname generator
• Viking surname generator
• Viking clan name generator

Sources

• Medievalists.net, Viking Nicknames (2014)
• Medievalists.net, From Butter Penis to Fairhair: 517 Real Viking Nicknames (2025)
• Mental Floss, 33 Crass and Creative Norse Nicknames (Hannah Keyser)
• Viking Answer Lady, Old Norse Names
• University of Aberdeen, Ragnar Shaggy-Trousers and Eystein Foul-Fart (2016)
• National Museum of Denmark, Viking names
• Paul R. Peterson, Old Norse Nicknames (University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation, 2015)