Sael again.

> I clicked Send - a trifle too soon I want to hazard a guess that

our English Surname "Thorburn" may have descended from Thorbjorn I
believe it seems likely Patricia

> Indeed, it is. And Thursten or Thurstin is from ON Thorsteinn.

Names that took the prfix Thor- were extremely popular during the
Viking Age proper, but only among heathen Scandinavians. About 1 of
4 names Norse settlers in the Icelandic Landnamabok had the element
in their name, either as Thor- or -thorr. This reflects Norwegian
conditions, but the names were also extremely common in Denmark and
Sweden. A few did not make it to Iceland (Thormarr, etc.), as they
were typically borne by the East Norse, although Thormar was later
adopted in Iceland also. Other Germanics were Christian at the time,
and did not share in the wildly popular develpoment of the Thor-
element in personal names, even if they still had many heathen names
from their own forefathers in use. Osbourne is, for instance, an
English name, which would have come to England with the Anglo-Saxon
settlers, who bore name in Os-, Elf- and so forth, but apparently not
in Thunor-. They believed in the OE god Thunor, and worshipped this
god, likely fervently, but it appears that only the more generic,
abstract god-names that could refer to any god were typically used by
Germanic in general. In Proto-Norse were have attested Ansugastiz and
Ansugislaz, two men's names unattesed in ON, despite ON names with
the prefix As- (But compare Thorgestr, Torgisl ot Thorgils). These
are beautiful names, but after the conversion one would not expect
them to be re-introduced, and, indeed, they were not, even if the
real thing (they are). No one knows why the Thor- element took over
with such fervour, or even when this development began. Our Proto-
Norse sources are so few, that although the element does not occur
there in personal names, we cannot say that it did not occur. But it
is clear from comparative Germanic evidence that the popularity of
the element Thor- in personal names in an ON development, and rooted
in the then current religion, later made obsolete. It is simply due
to their extreme popularity that these names survive at all in
Christian times, when almost all heathen names are lost. One can
understand the mindset when one considers that one of the greatest
authorites on nordic names in modern times, the Norwegian scholar
Eivind Vagslid, insists on intrepreting the element as meaning
something like tough, brave, enduring, etc., following some fancy
about how the Norse were simply innocent fishermen and farmers with
no religion, who happily and willingly saw the light and became
Christian at the mere mention of the word. I wonder how folk in
midieaval times dealt with these names? Anyway, I think we need to be
objective in looking at this material, and in this case admit that
some ON god *Thorr was at least somewhat popular during the Viking
Age! But let us not forget, the second element is the main element,
and not all names compound with Thor- as a prefix or -thorr as a
suffix. The overwhelming, extreme majority of ON names do not. That
is another reason why we need to look first at the basic, one-element
names to understand them, and their way of seeing the world. ON could
do wonderful things with suffixes, as we will see, and even though
this was dying out in ON, being truly active in Proto Norse, ON could
still work magic with suffixes when it wanted too.

-Konrad