Hildur
Feminine · “battle”
Hildur is the Icelandic and Faroese form of one of the oldest women's names in the Germanic world, and its ending is not part of the name at all: it is a grammatical case, attached because Icelandic still declines its nouns and its names along with them.
How old is the name Hildur?
Hildur first appears in US birth records in 1885 — 140 years ago. The typical Hildur alive today was born around 1907, making them about 118 years old. Fewer than a hundred people named Hildur are estimated to be alive in the US today — a true one-of-a-kind name.
When was the name Hildur most popular?
Hildur peaked in 1895, reaching #538 nationally. See the whole 1895 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From hildr to Hildur
The story of Hildur
The word is also the name of a figure in Norse legend who gave her name to a battle that does not end. The story, as Snorri sets it down, is that a king's daughter called Hild was carried off, her father pursued, and the two sides met on an island. She went between them offering terms, which were refused, and the fight went on until dark. That night she went out among the bodies and woke them, and in the morning the same men fought the same battle again, weapons and all, as though nothing had happened. It was to continue that way until the end of the world. Poets used the episode as a stock reference for centuries — a phrase meaning the weather of Hild is simply a way of saying a battle — and the story is one of the few places in the literature where the person and the abstraction behind a name are the same character.
Meaning
battle
The Old Norse word is hildr, battle, and it is the same element buried in Hilda, Matilda, Brunhild and Clotilde. Old Germanic naming treated words about fighting as compliments for children of both sexes, and this one is among the commonest of them.
How the name formed
- hildr
- Hildur
Related forms: Hilde · Hild · Hilda · Hildur
Pronouncing Hildur
HIL-door
Two syllables with the stress at the front, as Icelandic always places it. The u in the second syllable is short and close to the vowel in put; the r is rolled in Icelandic and rarely is in English.
Nicknames for Hildur
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1885
- Most girls named
- 191532 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #538reached in 1895
- Change vs 1927
- 0.0%6 in 1933, from 6
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Hildur in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Hilde in German — related form
- Hild in Norwegian — same name
- Hilda in English — related form
- Hildur in Faroese — same name
Hildurs among us
Fewer than a hundred people named Hildur are estimated to be alive in the US today — a true one-of-a-kind name.
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Hildur sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The meaning is fully documented and has been the same for over a thousand years.
- The stress is at the front, which is where an English reader will put it anyway.
- It is the genuine Icelandic form, not an anglicization, which matters in a family that has one.
- The ending will be read as part of the name, and in Icelandic it is not.
- Hilda is far more familiar in English and will be written for it.
- It is a name with a sharp meaning, and some families want a softer one.
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Hildur
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Hildurs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. Fewer than a hundred people named Hildur are estimated to be alive in the US today — a true one-of-a-kind name.
- How popular is the name Hildur in 2025?
- Hildur is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Hildur with classmates?
- Hildur will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More H names
The most-given names starting with H, all years combined.
Helen#461 · Heather#1261 · Hannah#56 · Hazel#21 · Holly#416 · Hailey#104 · Haley#861 · Heidi#340
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Hildur? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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