Eir?

I get a lot of questions about the name Eir.  What does it mean? Where is it from?  How is it pronounced?

I know the answer to the first two, and I know how I personally pronounce it and how my parents pronounced it, but I'm thinking that most people would probably not want to have to pronounce it at all.

It is Norse.  The basic meaning is Mercy.  The origin is from the Poetic Edda and refers to one of the "maidens" sitting gladly at the knee of Mengloth. 

Eir herself is thought to be either another name for the Goddess Frigg, or originally a Valkyrie.

Ok so here's where my problems with men begin.

Valkyries went around the battlefield, gathering the souls of the dead warriors and ushering them to Valhalla, that's pretty much known.  So what would a Valkyrie of mercy do?  Let them live you say?  Think again.  It was merciful to die on the battlefield rather than live and go home disfigured and/or disabled.  So if you're a Norse warrior  and you're lying there on the battlefield, injured but not dead, and a Valkyrie comes along, the merciful thing to do to you would be to finish you off so you could go on to Valhalla.

Do you see the problem here?

I've basically been named after a Valkyrie who was possibly the Slayer of Wounded Men.

Not something good for your dating life really.