Beowulf's Name by R.D. Fulk and Joseph Harris

Most scholars would say that Beowulf is keening for "bee-wolf" in which case bee is a honey bee and the wolf means foe which many would say the foe of the honey bee is a bear. Friedrich Panzer in 1910 was the first to come up with this theory, he supported this idea by the way Beowulf acts which is in some ways like a bear. In 1826 Jacob Grimm thought that the bee-wolf would be a woodpecker, Grimm said that it was a symbol for dignity during the time Beowulf was written. there are many different theories pertaining to Beowulf's name most all have something to do with the story. Although these are good ideas authors are looking for a standard through a normal Germanic theophoric naming-type, which is a name that has the name of a god in it. While there are very few names derived from keening there is no equivalent to the bee-wolf theory created by Grimm. It can be argued that the first half of his name is not Beo "bee" but actually Beow which is a pre-Christian god which is similar to the name Tiu-wulf or Thor-wolf. There are varied spellings for Beow, but the name is most common in the upper levels of Angelo-Saxon genealogies. In lines 18 and 53 Beow is put in place of Beowulf, this could have been a mistake made by a scribe or that the god Beow once stood in these two passages. These two names Beow and Beowulf cannot be reversed because Beowulf is bee-wolf which lacks the "w" in the first half of the name. A thought is that Beowulf is not an allegory but instead just the name of a man.