Ælfwine (alsoAelfwine,Elfwine) is anOld English personal name. It is composed of the elementsælf "elf" andwine "friend", continuing a hypotheticalCommon Germanic given name*albi-winiz which is also continued inOld High German andLombardic asAlbewin,Alpwin,Albuin,Alboin.Old Norse forms of the name areAlfvin andǪlfun. The modern nameAlwin may be a reduction of this name, or alternatively ofAdalwin, the Old High German cognate of the Anglo-SaxonÆthelwine. The name of theelves is clearly ofCommon Germanic age. As an element in given names, it is not found in the earliest period, but it is well attested from the 6th century and extinct by theLate Middle Ages.
Theælf and thewine element are frequent elements in Germanicanthroponymy, and these elements have in historical practice been combined without a compound meaning, though the name is often interpreted as "elf-friend". This translation was notably made use of byJ. R. R. Tolkien in hislegendarium, where anÆlfwine is a character who "befriended the elves".
The name continues a hypotheticalCommon Germanic given name*albi-winiz which is also continued inOld High German andLombardic asAlbewin,Alpwin,Albuin,Alboin.Old Norse forms of the name are Alfvin and Ǫlfun. The modern nameAlwin may be a reduction of this name, or alternatively ofAdalwin, the Old High German cognate of the Anglo-SaxonÆthelwine.
The name of theelves is clearly ofCommon Germanic age. As an element in given names, it is not found in the earliest period, but it is well attested from the 6th century.
The name is first attested as that ofAlboin (r. 560–572), king of theLombards. InAnglo-Saxon England, it first occurs with the child-kingÆlfwine of Deira (c. 661 - 679). The Old High German name is found in the 8th and 9th centuries in the formsAlfwin, Alfwini, Albuwin, Albuvin, Albewin, Albuin, Alpwin, in the 11th century also asElbewin.[1] The forms inalf are strictly speakingLow German, the forms inalbHigh German. The Old English ælf,elf are a result of thei-mutation inNorth Sea Germanic.
People with this name from the later Anglo-Saxon period include:
People with the Old High German name:
The earliest evidence of the name in Scandinavia dates to the 11th century. The Old Norse form of the name may thus be a loan from Low German or Anglo-Saxon. The name is attested on an 11th-centuryrunestone in theYounger Futhark spellingalfuin, and possibly on a second one, asaulfun.[2][3] AnOld Swedish spelling of the name wasAlwin.[4]
In theNorman period, both Ælfwine andÆthelwine were shortened toAlwin. This subsequently became asurname.
The name is extinct by theLate Middle Ages. It may have lingered longest in the Italian formAlboino, a name ofPaolo Alboino della Scala (1343–1375), afterAlboino I (d. 1311). It survived only in theEnglish surnameAlwin (variants Alwen, Alwyn, Allwyn, Elvin, Elwin, Elwyn), and there only by conflation with similar-sounding Anglo-Saxon names.
In J.R.R. Tolkien'slegendarium
