Was Saturday originally named after Loki?

This meme has been shared on different Facebook pages.

The problem with the Meme is saying that Saturday (laugardagr in Old Norse) has something to do with Lokis day. Laugardagr should be translated to “bathing day”, since the Old Norse word “Laug” means bath. Source: https://ordnet.dk/ods/ordbog?query=l%C3%B8rdag&tab=for

The Meme is correct when talking about Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (although it’s not clear from the sources if Friday is Frigg or Freya). It’s also clear that Monday and Sunday are “The Day of the Moon” and “The day of the Sun”. The names seem to be a translation of the Latin names for the day. If the Old Norse peoples saw these days as days pertain to the deified moon and sun we don’t know, but it does seem likely. Source http://denstoredanske.dk/Nordisk_Mytologi/Begreber/ugedage

Added shortly after the original article:

Some have referred to this article for the connection between Loki and Laugardagr: http://honortheroots.com/laugardagr/?fbclid=IwAR2UIwD9SIxwIVpaKOMa_KXPgUMlaBBf2FFHdY0OKUCdkUVrFRd7bexZi1k

The article doesn’t really add anything serious to the debate. The argument in the article comes down to the suggestion that the name of the day was changed from Loki’s day to Laugardagr because the Christians didn’t want to have a day named after Loki and the article continues “Some scholars have suggested that Laugardagr was actually named after Loki. “Loke,” being a Lokis Day abbreviation and later adaptation from the word “Lodurr” – suggesting that Laugardagr is also a name that is based upon one of our gods.”

I have not been able to identify who these ”scholars” are. There are some scholars think that the god named Lodurr is the same as Loki. It is not a generally accepted theory, but it could be. We don’t really know. But I have not heard about any scholar that connects the name Lodurr to the Laugar in Laugardagr. The two words don’t seem to have anything in common with each other, except they both begin with an “L”.

This page was deleted by a mistake at the end of 2019. This blog post is from the old page and has been reposted on the new page. The original article was posted in April 2019.

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