Ælfgifu

Ælfgifu (also Ælfgyfu; Elfgifa, Elfgiva, Elgiva) is an Anglo-Saxon feminine personal name, from ælf "elf" and gifu "gift". When Emma of Normandy, the later mother of Edward the Confessor, became queen of England in 1002, she was given the native Anglo-Saxon name of Ælfgifu to be used in formal and official contexts.[1]

Latinized forms of the name include forms such as Aelueua, Alueua, Alueue, Elgiva, Elueua, Aluiua, Aueue (etc.).

People called Ælfgifu:

• Ælfgifu of Exeter, Anglo-Saxon saint
• Ælfgifu of Northampton, first wife of King Cnut the Great. Her name became Álfífa in Old Norse.
• Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury, wife of King Edmund I of England
• Ælfgifu of York, first wife of Æthelred the Unready
• Ælfgifu, wife of Eadwig, king of England
  • as Elgiva, the female protagonist of Edwy and Elgiva, a 1790 verse tragedy by Frances Burney
• Emma of Normandy adopted the name Ælfgifu upon her marriage to Æthelred the Unready
• Ælfgifu, wife of Ælfgar, Earl of Mercia
• Ælfgifu, daughter of Godwin, Earl of Wessex, and sister of King Harold II of England
• Ælfgifu, daughter of Æthelred the Unready and wife of Uhtred, Earl of Northumbria
• Ælfgyva, a woman of unknown identity in the Bayeux Tapestry

Elgiva may also refer to:

• Elgiva (fly), a genus of insects

See also

• Ælfgar
• Eadgifu

References

1. Florence of Worcester: Emmam, Saxonica Alfgivam vocatam; see Bolton Corney (July 1839). The Gentleman's Magazine. p. 44.