Very few typical Norwegian names among the most popular names in Norway 2001.

What I was looking for here was an easy rule for foreigners: why Toril/Torild/Torhild/Torill can't be anything but a female name. I made a search for male names ending on -il, to see if I could use the rule that -il comes from -hild and as such must be a female name (Hild was one of the Valkyrie, and the meaning of the name is valkyrie or shield-maiden, warrior woman). The problem is that Arild, Egil, Eskil, Kjetil and Torkil would all be annoyed if I said anything like that. However: you can safely assume that names ending with -ar are male. Reidar, Gunnar, Bjørnar, Runar, Oddvar - they are all names which mean some kind of guardian. Runar = guard of the mystery (Rune+ar).