No matter what Stan Lee might have told you, he didn’t come up with the idea for Thor on his own. That was actually a bunch of hairy guys a few centuries back, with hobbies like living in upside-down boats and hitting monks with axes.

Norse mythology — and most mythology — had so much to offer the comic book industry, what with its colorful characters and the way that nobody could sue if you called “dibs” on its colorful characters. Artistic license was taken. Very little about the time that Thor put on his mom’s clothes and married a giant before massacring the wedding party made it into the Jack Kirby comics. Still, the broad strokes were there, even when nobody could 100% account for them.

Take Thor’s hammer, for example: Mjölnir, a cube on a stick, equal parts iconic and not too difficult to draw a couple of dozen times a week if you were working for Marvel at the time. Of all the details to lift straight from an ancient religion, the name “Mjölnir” is a choice. Like a lot of words coming out of the majestic laplands, it seems designed specifically to make kids who just finished their phonics tapes give up and start smoking cloves. The writers over at Journey into Mystery could have called it anything — Mister Bonks, or Smack Baggins, or Zappy the Incredible Flying Square. The name “Mjölnir” must have some significance, right? 

Well, here’s the thing: We just don’t know. The origins of a lot of Norse mythology have been lost to time. A centuries-long oral tradition, even with the best of intentions, is still a game of telephone that you’re playing with your great, great grandparents, and it doesn’t help when your entire culture is predisposed to long-term sogginess. A significant amount of Norse mythology has wound up in a weird spot: We know how it ended, just not how we got there. It’s what scholars call “the Reverse J.J. Abrams.”

That said, there are some solid guesses as to how Mjölnir got its name. Dan McCoy, author of The Viking Spirit: An Introduction to Norse Mythology and Religion, points out that there are words in Old Slavic, Russian, and Welsh that all sound pretty similar to “Mjölnir” (“mlunuji,” “molnija,” and “mellt,” respectively) and translate to “lightning.” Maybe the weapon of the god of thunder is just that: lightning, captured in a physical form, striking from the heavens. It’s evocative. 

Citing the books A Dictionary of Northern Mythology and Myth and Religion of the North, McCoy also points out that Icelandic words, “mjöll” and “mjalli,” translate to “white” and “new snow.” If Mjölnir took its etymological roots from these words, it could have been either a description of the blinding-white color of a lightning strike or of the purity symbolized by the weapon of a god. 

Meanwhile, “Stormbreaker” means “thing that breaks storms.” Academics have had that one locked in for a while now.

It’s the soft “j” that gives people problems. Nobody uses a soft “j” in their name.

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