Dedicated in loving memory of Peter Tork, né Peter Halsten Thorkelson, 13 February 1942–21 February 2019, whose birth surname inspired this post.
Thor’s Fight with the Giants, Mårten Eskil Winge, 1872
I’ve wanted to do a post on Thor-inspired names for quite some time. Though many might consider the name Thor itself to be pompous and pretentious, there are quite a few other names whose meanings relate to Thor. If you wouldn’t consider the name Thor for a real child, perhaps you’d be more inclined to use one of these names.
Unless otherwise noted, all these names are male.
Thor was the Norse god of thunder, from Old Norse þórr, ultimately from Ancient Germanic *þunraz. The name was #48 in Denmark in 2017. Its modern form is Tor, and the feminine forms are Thora and Tora.
Haldor (Norwegian) means “Thor’s rock,” from Old Norse Hallþórr.
Tollak (Norwegian) means “Thor’s play/game,” from Old Norse þórleikr. The word leikr refers to a game or play involving weapons.
Torbjörn (Swedish) means “Thor’s bear,” from Old Norse þórbjörn. Variants include Torbjørn (Danish, Norwegian); Thorbjørn (Norwegian); Torben (Danish, German); Thornben (German); and þorbjörn (Icelandic).
Torgeir (Norwegian) means “Thor’s spear,” from Old Norse þórgeirr. Variants are Torger and Terje. The latter isn’t to be confused with a female Estonian name meaning “mist.”
Torgny Segerstedt (1876–1945), Swedish scholar of comparative religion, and publicist and editor-in-chief of anti-Nazi newspaper Göteborgs Handels-och Sjöfartstidning
Torgny (Swedish) means “Thor’s noise/murmur/grumble,” from Old Norse þórgnýr.
Torhild (Norwegian, female) means “Thor’s battle,” from Old Norse þórhildr. Variants are Toril and Torill.
Torkel (Swedish, Norwegian) means “Thor’s cauldron,” from Old Norse þórketill. Variants include Tyge (Danish); Tyko (Finnish); Tygo (Dutch); Tycho (Dutch, Danish); Torcuil (Scottish); Torquil (Anglicized Gaelic); and Torkil (Danish, Norwegian).
Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, 1546–1601
Torleif (Norwegian) means “Thor’s descendent,” from Old Norse þórleifr.
Tormod (Norwegian) means “Thor’s mind/mood,” from Old Norse þórmóðr.
Torsten (Danish, Swedish, German) means “Thor’s stone,” from Old Norse þórsteinn. Variants include Thorsten (Swedish, Danish); Thorstein, Torstein (Norwegian); Torsti (Finnish); and Thurston (English). þorstína and þorsteina (Icelandic) are feminine forms. An elaborated Icelandic feminine form, þórsteinunn, means “Thor’s stone wave.”
Torvald (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish) means “Thor’s ruler,” from Old Norse þórvaldr. Many people may recognize this as the name of the husband in Henrik Ibsen’s famous play A Doll’s House.
Onomastics Outside the Box 
Reblogged this on My Inner MishMash and commented:
What a beautiful diversity here! 🙂 As a lover of all things Nordic/viking related, most of these are already well known to me, but still looking at all these Thor-inspired names at once, it’s quite impressive how many of them exist. Despite my love for Norse mythology, I can’t say that I particularly love Thor, I am pretty neutral about the name itself, have nice associations with it, and with most of those names, usually because of some literary characters with these names that I know, I think if I wanted to have children I wouldn’t consider using any of these, though Thor reminds me also of my friend who did want to call his future son Tor in honour of this Norse god, haha, and given his incredible and steely determination I’m sure he would if he only got a chance.
I was quite surprised to see that Torquil also comes from Thor – I mean it sounds like it’s quite obvious but when I first stumbled upon this name, I only knew it’s used in Scotland so somehow didn’t think it could have anything to do with Thor or the name Torkel despite a very similar sound. – I do like Torquil a bit, it sounds a bit like the word tranquil, and is both strong and peaceful. I also kind of like Torkel, Torgeir and Torgny, and Torill is nice. Also I’ve heard somewhere about the feminine name Thorgunn, which I’d also suppose is derived from Thor, and I think it sounds so beautifully powerful.
Do you guys like any of these?
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