Gefjun is from the Old Norse Gefjon (giver) — Norse goddess of plowing, fertility, prophecy, and virginity. A modern American baby name in the broader Norse heritage aesthetic. Gefjun is one of the foundational Asynjur (female Æsir) goddesses of Norse mythology, attested throughout the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson (13th century), and the Ynglinga Saga. The foundational myth describes how Gefjun tricked King Gylfi of Sweden out of a vast tract of land — by transforming her four sons (fathered by a giant) into oxen, she plowed up the land in a single night, dragged it across the sea, and made it the Danish island of Zealand. The lake left behind (Mälaren or Vänern) became one of the largest Swedish lakes. The iconic Gefion Fountain (Gefionspringvandet) in Copenhagen (1908) — sculpted by Anders Bundgaard, depicting Gefjun driving her four oxen — is one of the foundational Danish monuments + the most-photographed fountain in Copenhagen.
Featured throughout Norse heritage and Danish national identity.
Gefjun 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.
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In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Gefjun reduce to 9, The Giver. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.