bjorn (thing)

"Bjorn" is the word for bear in most Scandanavian languages, including Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. It's also a reasonably common male name in those countries. Terry Pratchett has been known to use it as a Dwarf name in his Discworld novels.

The word has several alternative spellings involving characters not found in the English language. The ones I know of:

• Bjørn, the Danish variation (this is how my own name is supposed to be spelled).
• Björn, the Norwegian variation.