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I'm still curious about my surname, since I can never get to a conclusive answer. My grandfather (the bearer of Ivars, Gilbert Ivars) always said to my mother that we descend from vikings, and he is French. Then I did little search some years ago and found houseofnames.com, which said that Ivars was first found in Normandy (an area colonized by norsemen in France). That seemed to confirm my grandfather's history.

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But, Ivars also means "Valley" in Basque, and is a Basque surname. And the Basque country is located between Spain and France.

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So, I want to know the origin of nordic/french Ivars, since I already know about the basque one, and houseofnames seems to be wrong. (http://houseofnames.com/fc.asp?sId=&s=ivars) All Ivars that I found are located in swedish-speaking areas of Finland, if that could help.

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The closer I got to Ivars in the internet was Ívars, which is a genitive form of Ívar, an Icelandic an Faorese name. (http://www.nordicnames.de/pojk_i/Ivar.html)

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Ivars can still be found today in swedish-speaking areas of Finland, since there is young people with it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Ivars) The nordic Ivars should mean "of Ivar", which would mean "of Bow Warrior (Archer)".

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So, can you help me out? I want to know where it originated, or in which places it were common. And forgive my english and big post.