OLIVER LEWIS

From a French name, Olivier, recorded as the name of one of Charlemagne's paladins (retainers), the close companion in arms of Roland in the Chanson de Roland. Whereas Roland is headstrong and rash, Oliver is thoughtful and cautious. Ostensibly this name derives from Late Latin olivarius ‘olive tree’ (compare Olive), but Charlemagne's other paladins all bear solidly Germanic names, so it is more probably an altered form of a Germanic name, perhaps distantly connected with Old Norse Óleifr ‘ancestral relic’. It has remained in more or less continuous use since the medieval period, becoming ever more popular since the 1980s.

English (but most common in Wales): from Lowis, Lodovicus, a Norman personal name composed of the Germanic elements hlod ‘fame’ + wīg ‘war’. This was the name of the founder of the Frankish dynasty, recorded in Latin chronicles as Ludovicus and Chlodovechus (the latter form becoming Old French Clovis, Clouis, Louis, the former developing into German Ludwig). The name was popular throughout France in the Middle Ages and was introduced to England by the Normans. In Wales it became inextricably confused with 2.