Expert: Roy Helge Rasmussen - 10/29/2009

Question
Hi Roy,
My maiden name is Eide. Most of my family is from northern Norway if I remember correctly. A lot of them are still there. My maternal grandmother had the surname of Holven, given name of Helen Louvise. I am trying to find a definition for Eide and anything at all for the name Holven. I know she couldn't have been the only one on the planet. Thank You

Answer
Eide is an ancient name meaning wading point / strait /narrows. The place you can wade over the river, where there is a bridge or where you can walk across the narrows.

Holven is also a very old name. It derives from old norse "Hallvin" meaning sloping/slanted(hall) meadows(vin).

I have checked these two names with the university of Oslo, so they should be correct.

There are 63 persons with Holven as their surname in norway today.
And 8305 persons with the name Eide.

Here is a list of the phone numbers for all the Holvens with a telephone:
http://www.gulesider.no/tk/search.c?q=holven