This article discusses the alleged existence of a medieval Norwegian personal name Solli, which E. H. Lind lists in his monumental Norsk-isländska dopnamn ock fingerade namn från medeltiden (1905–15, 1931) and derives etymologically from the verb svella ‘to swell’. It is argued that this was no independent name formation in medieval times, but rather a spelling variant or a hypocorism of the common Old Norse name Sǫlvi(r), whereas the Modern Norwegian name Solle (Sølle) is, more likely, a continuation of the more marginal Old Norse name Sǫrli. The argu-ments for making such a division between old and new Solle are primarily the great variance in spellings of the name Sǫlvi(r) in the medieval sources as well as the overlapping geographical dis-tribution of these name forms. Some of the persons whose names are spelled ‹Solle› etc. in the sources are tentatively linked to persons who clearly had the name Sǫlvi(r). A sound change from Sǫlvi(r) to Solli is problematic, though, and the new form is explained as either a pure spelling variant where the v is left out (as in other spellings of the same name), or a hypocorism where the consonant cluster has been simplified (as in Modern Swedish nick-name equivalents such as Hjalle for Hjalmar and Kalle for Karl)
