The parish of Evje og Vegusdal was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt law). According to the 1835 census the municipality had a population of 1,627.[4] On 1 January 1877, Evje og Vegusdal was divided to create two separate municipalities: Evje with a population of 870 and Vegusdal with a population of 935. These two municipalities later became parts of Evje og Hornnes and Birkenes respectively.[5]
Name
The parishes of Evje and Vegusdal were merged in 1838 and the new, resulting municipality was given the compound name Evje og Vegusdal, literally meaning "Evje and Vegusdal".
The parish of Evje is named after the old Evje farm (Old Norse: Efja) since the first Evje Church was built there. The name is identical to the word efja which means "backwater" or "mud" (likely referring to a shallow, backwater part of the local river Otra).[6]
The parish of Vegusdal is named after the old Vegusdal farm (Old Norse: Veikolfsdalr) since the first Vegusdal Church was built there. The first element is derived from the old male name, Veikolfr. The male name itself was a compound name with the first component Veik- coming from veikr which means "weak" and the second component -olfr was a variant form of the more common male name Úlfr (also spelled Ulfr, from Old Norse úlfr, ulfr "wolf"; cf. Icelandic Úlfur and Faroese Úlvur). The last element of the name is dalr which means "valley" or "dale". Thus this is the "valley of Weak-Ulfr (or Weak-Wolf)".[7]
^Kiær, Anders Nicolai; Helland, Amund; Vibe, Johan; Strøm, Boye (1904). Norges land og folk: Nedenes amt (in Norwegian). Norway: H. Aschehoug & Company. p. 368. Retrieved 19 December 2020.