First name content excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to 30,000 Baby Names © 2005 by Marcia Layton Turner. Buy this book online or call 1-800-253-6476.
Last name content copyright © 2006 Patrick Hanks.
Last name origin & meaning:
Finnish: from a personal name derived from a short form of a Germanic compound name formed with hild ‘battle’, ‘strife’ (as for example Hildebrand) + the common surname suffix -nen.