Igor

Igor is a Slavic name with a Norse root. It reached the lands of the Rus with Varangian traders who rowed south from Scandinavia, and it settled most firmly into Russian soil, where people still hear it as thoroughly Russian. The older form is Yngvarr, from Yngvi, a byname of the god Freyr, joined to a word for warrior or guardian. Hence the short meaning, warrior of Ing.

The first famous Igor was a prince. Igor of Kiev ruled in the tenth century and died collecting tribute, cut down by the Drevlians who judged his demands too greedy. A later Igor, grandson of Vladimir the Great, gave up the throne of Kiev for a monk's cell and was afterward counted a saint. Centuries on, the composer Igor Stravinsky put the name on concert programmes worldwide.

Cross the border and the same name turns into Ihor, its Ukrainian form. In a Polish szkoła the register keeps it short, four letters, quick to call at roll. The imieniny fall most often on the fifth of June. Behind it stands a warrior named for the god Ing.