trebonius.

Named after schoolteacher Daniel Trebonius, who taught at Stavanger Cathedral School from 1671. A Stavanger record from 1674 identifies him as Daniel Torbensen (Trebonius), while the University of Copenhagen matriculation already records him as Daniel Trebonius in 1652, showing that he used the learned name before coming to Norway. Trebonius was probably a humanist Latinization or learned equivalent of the Scandinavian name Torben or its patronymic Torbensen. The use of Trebonius as a Latinized form of Torben is also found for other early modern Scandinavian name-bearers. Torben corresponds to Norwegian Torbjørn, from Old Norse Þorbjǫrn, from Þórr (“Thor”) + bjǫrn (“bear”); Torbensen is a patronymic meaning “son of Torben”. The learned form may have been modelled after Latin Trebōnius, an ancient Roman nomen gentile. Gunnar A. Skadberg alternatively suggests a connection with French très bon (“very good”), but this is speculative. Daniel was not Norwegian by origin. A later Stavanger source describes him as Swedish by birth, while his 1652 matriculation identifies him as a student from Ystad in Skåne. At the time, Skåne still belonged to Denmark; it was ceded to Sweden in 1658. According to later Stavanger tradition, after Trebonius was dismissed from the cathedral school in 1682, he disappeared from the city so quietly and quickly that people wondered whether he had hidden himself, supposedly giving rise to the name of the game. The story is traditional rather than securely established; historical records indicate that he died soon afterwards, as his wife was recorded as a widow in 1684.