What Is the Meaning of the Old Norse Name Durinn?

Q: What Is the Meaning of the Old Norse Name Durinn?

ANSWER: You may have come across an article on the Web that says “Durinn” is Old Norse for “Sleepy”. One online commenter even goes so far as to imply that the other seven fathers of the Dwarves in Middle-earth may have names similar to Doc, Grumpy, Lumpy, Stinky, Sweaty, and Sneezy (or whatever the names of those other seven dwarfs are supposed to be). I don’t know if associating J.R.R. Tolkien’s seven dwarf fathers with Walt Disney’s seven dwarfs is crossing a line or digging deep into the author’s psyche, but the reference sent me on a quick search of Old Norse glossaries.

As I rather expected, there is more than one way to interpret the Old Norse (or Icelandic) name. When doing this kind of research I usually seek old, old resources that predate the Internet if possible. That is because so much misinformation is passed around online you really cannot be sure of what you are reading. So let us start with the spelling of the name. There are two variants in pre-Internet texts. The most popular is Durinn but I found a couple of sources that use Dyrinn. They assign the root word dyrr (“door”), whereas only some of the sources for Durinn assign the root word dur (“door”). Other Durinn sources assign the root word dur (“sleep”).

Well, that’s entirely unhelpful. But leave it to the Old Norse language to confuse things even further. There are multiple words used for “door” and “sleep”, such as hurð for “door” and hofgi or svefn for “sleep”. “To sleep” would be sofa, which we use in English as a name for a small couch (especially one intended for sleeping, sometimes found in the compound “sofa bed”).

Well, if we cannot find a definitive meaning for dur(r)/dyr(r) nor a single word that means either “door” or “sleep”, what does the suffix -inn tell us? Apparently this suffix was used to create “adjective for materials” (according to Wiktionary, which does NOT predate the Internet) from nouns and, later, from verbs. It’s hard to conceive of a door-based adjective but some pre-Internet sources give “door-warden” as a translation for Durin(n). The problem with this translation, however, is that Durin is one of two (no, three) leaders among the dwarfs in Dvergatal. Mo(t/d)sognir was the leader of the dwarfs and the eldest, followed by Durin(n). A third dwarf-leader named Dvalin(n) is also mentioned.

There are a few names given in Dvergatal (“Catalog of the Dwarfs”) that are similar in style to the name Durin(n). For example, Dvalin(n). But there is also Dain(n), from da (another word for “sleep”). Dain(n) has been translated as “the soporiferous”, which kind of means “the sleep bringer”. In 1824 Finnur Magnússon translated Dain(n) (given as the name of one of the four stags living on Yggdrasil) as “the dead one”, so he seems to draw the word from dauði (“death”).

Fundin(n) means “(the) found”, or “(the) finding” (from fund(r) meaning “finding, discovery” or from finna, “to find”).

Gloin(n) means “(the) glowing” from the verb gloa, “to glow”. Or it could mean something like “(the) staring”, as in English glower (an angry stare) but most sources that I checked give “glowing”/gloa as the meaning/source.

Hugin(n) means “thought” or “thinking” from the root hugr “a thought”. But some sources translate hugr as “a soul” or “a spirit”, so it seems that the word conflated your thinking consciousness with your spirit much as modern English soul does.

Móin(n) is a dwelling or place of habitation located on a moor, according to one source but I’m not convinced. Móinn was the name of a serpent, not a dwarf. He had a brother Góin(n), and they were the sons of Grafvitnir. They all lived on Yggdrasil. Some sources tentatively translate Móinn as “land animal” but curiously the Icelandic language has an expression malda í móinn which seems to mean something like “raise an objection” or “deny these facts”.

The name is found in the story of Helgi Hundingsbani in the lines:

þeir hafa markat
á ‘móins heimom,’
at hug hafa
hjörum at bregða.

This website translates that as “They have shown at Móinshome (at Móins dwelling places) that they have courage to swing swords.'”

But enough about Móinn and Góinn. We also have Muninn, which means “memory” or “(the) mind”. Odin’s two ravens were Huginn and Muninn, “a thought” and “(the) mind”, which seem appropriate for Odin given that he was the wisest of the Aesir.

Svalin(n) is translated as “(the) cooling” or “(the) refrigerating”. Svalr is an Old Norse adjective meaning “cool” or “cold”. I think a better translation for Svalinn might be “the one who cools” or “the cooling one”. Svalinn was a shield that stood between the Earth and the sun, cooling the sun’s heat (in Grimnismal). Maybe this is a reference to the clouds?

Thorin(n) is translated as “the daring one” or “he who dares”. Another given meaning is “transversely” or “cross-wise” or “athwart” from the verb thora. But wait! There’s more. Numerous sources also associate this name with Thor, the god of thunder (or storms, depending on your source). So Thor the Aesir god of thunder (storms) shares a name with a dwarf.

Thrain(n) is derived from Old Norse þrá (thra) and that is given as “obstinacy” or “stubbornness”. So Thrain(n) could be translated as “the stubborn one”, although one source gives “the Pertinacious” as the meaning of the name, which in modern English is something like “the opinionated one”. The same source translates þrá as “desiring vehemently”. Another source shows þreyja as in “to desire”, indicating this verb is related to þrá. So I suppose an alternate rendering for Thrain(n) would be “the one who desires”.

Vegsvinn (a river name) also appears to use the suffix -inn and is given in one source as “road-knowing” but I think that is a kenning. Another source says this name actually ends in Old Norse -svinnr, offering a translation as “flowing rapidly (in its course)”.

Víðbláin(n) is usually translated as “the far blue” (from Víð, “wide, far” and blá, “blue”). This is the name of the third heaven (the highest one) where the Light-elves live and where souls will be kept safe during Ragnarok.

Taking all these example names, we can come back to Durin(n) and see that his name might be a kenning. As one of the three fathers of the Dwarfs in Norse/Icelandic mythology Durin could be the doorway through which the dwarfs entered the world (he and Motsognir made them).

The name Modsognir has also been translated in more than one way. Some sources give “battle roarer” or “frenzy roarer” but others “the tired one” or “mead sucker”. Another source gives “sucking in courage or strength”. In other words, it looks like no one really knows what this name means, but he was the first of the dwarfs created by the Aesir and he was originally in the form of a maggot (in the Norse myth, the Aesir killed Ymir, the first giant, and they turned the maggots gnawing his corpse into the dwarfs). Curiously, one Old Icelandic dictionary translates mot as “meeting”. Wiktionary traces sogn (a church parish) to Old Norse sokn (“attendance”), so perhaps Modsognir could mean something like “meeting attendant”.

That said, if we assume that Durin was the chief dwarf (since the others were made “as he ordered”) and that it was he who helped the Aesir make other dwarfs (and maybe men) then the meaning of “door-keeper” or “door-warden” makes more sense. His role in the myth may have been something like a door-ward, granting admittance only to acceptable members of his race or perhaps guiding them away from the meeting place of the gods.

In Tolkien’s fiction, however, he simply translates the name Durin as “king” (you knew that, right?). But Tolkien’s Durin was the eldest and he (slept and) walked alone. You have to wonder if maybe Durin didn’t have a special role in Tolkien’s thought. It may well be that Tolkien was amused by the various theories concerning the meanings of the names of the Dwarfs in Voluspa, and he gave his eldest dwarf the name of which he was most sure (perhaps). That Durin may mean “sleepy” in Old Norse (or Icelandic) would have been known to Tolkien, and it may be that he eventually decided all the Durins who were born into his line were indeed that one Durin returned after a “long sleep” (that is, his spirit slept in Mandos until it was sent to be reborn in Middle-earth again).

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