Yngvi

The Ingvaeones, who occupied a territory roughly equivalent to modern Denmark, Frisia, Northern Germany, and the Low Countries at the turn of the millennium, were mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his Natural Histories as one of "five Germanic tribes".

The earliest case of such an i͡ŋ bindrune of reasonably certain reading is the inscription mari͡ŋs (perhaps referring to the "Mærings" or Ostrogoths[citation needed]) on the silver buckle of Szabadbattyán, dated to the first half 5th century and conserved at the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest.

[4] The Old English rune poem contains these obscure lines: ᛝ Ing ƿæs ærest mid Eástdenum geseƿen secgum, oð he síððan e[á]st ofer ƿæg geƿát.

A torc, the so-called "Ring of Pietroassa", part of a late third to fourth century Gothic hoard discovered in Romania, is inscribed in much-damaged runes, one reading of which is gutanī [i(ng)]wi[n] hailag "to Ingwi[n] of the Goths holy".

In the Historia Norwegiæ (written around 1211), in contrast, Ingui is the first king of Sweden, and the father of a certain Neorth, in his turn the father of Froyr: "Rex itaque Ingui, quem primum Swethiæ monarchiam rexisse plurimi astruunt, genuit Neorth, qui vero genuit Froy; hos ambos tota illorum posteritas per longa sæcula ut deos venerati sunt.

Froyr vero genuit Fiolni, qui in dolio medonis dimersus est […]" In the introduction to his Edda (originally composed around 1220) Snorri Sturluson claimed again that Odin reigned in Sweden and relates: "Odin had with him one of his sons called Yngvi, who was king in Sweden after him; and those houses come from him that are named Ynglings."

But rather oddly Snorri immediately follows this with information on what should be four other personages who were not sons of Halfdan but who also fathered dynasties, and names the first of these again as "Yngvi, from whom the Ynglings are descended".

In the related account in the Ættartolur "Genealogies" attached to Hversu Noregr byggðist, the name Skelfir appears instead of Yngvi in the list of Halfdan's sons.

The element Ing(o)- was widely used in Germanic names from an early period; it is not clear whether it originally referred to the Ingaevones, or to the god Yngwi directly.