Entry № 3820 · Old Norse origin

Gudrun Gudrun — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ GOOD-roon /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Old Norse
Meaning
"Battle-rune (Volsung heroine)"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Ancient (Old Norse)

A name that means "battle-rune (volsung heroine)".

Gudrun combines the Old Norse guðr (battle) and rún (secret, rune) — meaning "secret battle." In the Volsung Saga and Nibelungenlied, Gudrun (Kriemhild in German) is the wife of Sigurd, mother of Aslaug.

Gudrun is widely used in modern Scandinavia and Iceland.

Battle-rune. Sigurd's wife in the Volsung Saga.

The name in its native script.

Guðrún
Transliteration
Guðrún
Pronunciation
/ ˈɡʊd.ruːn /
Root
Grammatical form

What Gudrun is built from.

Gudrun is a compound name. Its parts are guð + rún — each an attested element with a recorded meaning of its own.

guð
Old Norse
“god”
rún
Old Norse
“secret lore, rune”

Where Gudrun stands.

Gudrun does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Gudruns before her.

Real people
Gudrun Pausewang
German YA novelist.
1928 – 2020
In fiction
Gudrun
Heroine of the Volsung Saga.
Norse epic
Gudrun Brangwen
Character in Women in Love.
D.H. Lawrence, 1920

Names connected to Gudrun.

The number behind Gudrun.

4

The Builder

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Gudrun reduce to 4, The Builder. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.