A male name. Old English Osgar, compound cf os ‘a god’ and gar ‘spear’. Both this and the corresponding Norse Asgeirr were in use in England before the Norman Conquest, but do not seem to have long survived it. Macpherson in his Ossianic poems gave the name Oscar to the s. of Ossian; the name also appears in some old Irish poems as Osgar, and had doubtless been carried to Ireland by the Danes. Napoleon’s Ossianic enthusiasm caused him to bestow the name Oscar upon his grand-daughterson s.

of Bernadotte, who later succeeded his father as Oscar I, King of Sweden. The great vogue of Ossian on the Continent has led to the general use of the name Oscar there. Charlotte Mary Yonge, History of ChristianNames, 2 vols. 1863. Revised ed. 1884, in mentioning this, adds that with us, however, it has descended to dogs’. But in fact it has, since her time, been used a good deal in England and Ireland.

Osgarus Domesday Book 1086.

Apparently French (? Breton) before it became English, its Gaelic form is Osgar (see especially Macpherson’s Ossian and derivatively, Byron’s Oscar of Alva). It is said to mean ‘bounding spear’; I do not question the ‘spear’, but I suspect that the os part connotes divinity (see at Osbert). In Australian slang, Oscar is ‘cash’: see my Slang.

From the Old German name Oskar, from os-ger, very renowned.

A Celtic name, meaning: Bounding warrior.