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Etymology

The islands' endonym Føroyar, as well as its English name Faroe Islands (alt. Faeroe or the Faroes), derive from the Old Norse Færeyjar. The second element oyar ('islands') is a holdover from Old Faroese; sound changes have rendered the word's modern form as oyggjar. Names for individual islands (such as Kalsoy and Suðuroy) also preserve the old form.

The name's ultimate etymological origin has been subject to dispute. The most widely-held theory, first attested in Færeyinga Saga, interprets it as a straightforward compound of fær ('sheep') and eyjar ('islands'), meaning "sheep islands", in reference to their abundance on the archipelago. Clergymen Peder Clausson and Lucas Debes began casting doubt on this theory in the 16th and 17th centuries, arguing that the West Norse-speaking settlers, whose word for sheep was sauðr instead of the East Norse fær, could not have coined it from this exact origin. Debes surmised that it could have derived from fjær ('far'), while Hammershaimb leaned towards fara ('to go, to travel').

Others have theorised an Old Irish origin: relating it to the etymologies of neighbouring Orkney and Shetland, Scottish writers James Currie and William J. Watson suggested respectively the words feur ('pasture, eaten-up outfield') and fearann ('land, territory') as possible derivations, arguing that the original Celtic attestations of the islands made this more likely. Archaeologist Anton Wilhelm Brøgger concurred, elaborating on Watson's theory by positing that the Norse, having first learned of the islands from Scottish and Irish accounts as a fearann, could have coined Færeyjar as a phono-semantic match.