Although Grant Allen[1] and Isaac Taylor[2] described Wæring as an Anglo-Saxon clan name equivalent to the Norse Væringjar (autonym of the Varangians), the eminent British philologist Walter William Skeat suggested that it might be a patronymic.

According to Danish Slavist Adolf Stender-Petersen, it means 'men who engage in a pursuit in a relationship of mutual responsibility,' but another theory is that it refers to someone who enters into the service or comes under the protection of a new lord by an oath of fealty.

[16][17] Skeat accused Bardsley of confusing Wæring with Warin, pointing out that "both the original vowel and the suffix differ."

The guard was initially exclusively Scandinavian, but exiled Anglo-Saxon mercenaries began to dominate it after the Norman Conquest of England.

[20] The predominant spelling of the surname in modern Danish and Norwegian, Væring (more rarely Wæring), means a 'Varangian' in both of those languages.

[27][28] In Swedish orthography, w was used specifically in the Fraktur typeface to indicate indigenous words pronounced with the voiced labiodental fricative (the "v-sound").

His 1938 United States naturalization record notes that he was also known as Erik Norman Waering,[32] the name appearing on his 1940 draft registration and 1956 marriage certificate.