The Old Norse theonym Óðr derives from a noun meaning mind, wit, soul, or sense and carries meanings of song and poetry. It stems from Proto-Germanic wōðaz describing someone possessed, inspired, delirious, or raging. The adjective ultimately traces back to a Pre-Germanic form uoh₂-tós related to the Proto-Celtic term for seer.
Chapter 35 of the Prose Edda book Gylfaginning states that the goddess Freyja was married to someone named Óðr. The two produced a daughter Hnoss whose name derives from hnossir meaning treasures applied to whatever is beautiful and precious. High details that Óðr would go off traveling for extended periods all while Freyja stayed behind weeping tears of red gold.
Philologist Jan de Vries argued that the Old Norse deities Óðinn and Óðr were probably originally connected as a doublet similar to Ullr and Ullinn. Scholar Stephan Grundy says that Óðinn is an adjectival form of Óðr and that Óðr may be the elder form of the two. Both are described as going on long journeys though Snorri Sturluson is careful to keep them apart.
Scholar Rudolf Simek says that since Óðr appears in a kenning employed by the 11th century skald Einarr Skúlason he is not a late invention. Nothing else is stated of him by this name in the Eddic poems beyond his appearance in stanza 25 of the Poetic Edda poem Völuspá. All theories regarding him must remain speculative due to the limited accounts contained in the sources.
Scholar Stephan Grundy opines that there is little doubt that Óðr and Odin were once the same figure based on work by Jan de Vries and others. Grundy notes that Wod survives in folklore involving the Wild Hunt in areas as far south from Scandinavia as Switzerland. The linguistic relationship between the names is identical to that of Ullr and Ullin often considered variant names of a single god.