Harald

Harald rings like a horn across a fjord. Of Old Norse origin, it joins herr, army, with valdr, ruler, to mean army-leader, and it has been worn by Viking kings from Harald Bluetooth, who united Denmark and gave modern technology its wireless nickname, to the current King Harald V of Norway. In Swedish mouths the name keeps its crisp consonants and open central a. Two syllables, but ones that arrive with ceremony. It reads regal, weather-hardened, a name attached to longships and coronation portraits in equal measure. Uncommon outside Scandinavia today, Harald offers parents a genuinely heroic option without crossing into fantasy.