The meaning of the name is uncertain. Barri is called a grove (lundr) but Bar(r)ey is probably an island (ey being the Old Norse for "island")[2] and could be connected with Barra, one of the Hebrides islands, which was once called Barrey.[3] The meaning of the first part of the name, barr, is not very enlightening for it has several meanings: "pine needle", "conifer", "tree" or "grain",[4] especially "barley".[2]Magnus Olsen suggested that Barri meant "cornfield". This supports his interpretation of the union of Freyr and Gerðr as a holy wedding between a fertility god and the Earth Mother.[5] But this interpretation has been contested and Barri could be rendered into "coniferous forest" (as Rudolf Simek noticed, it would be a suitable name for a grove[3]) and the signification of Barrey might be "barley-island" or "grain-island", which, John Lindow underlined, "makes no sense in the context of a fertility myth".[6]
Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist (trans.). 1916. Snorri Sturluson: The Prose Edda. New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation.
Thorpe, Benjamin (trans.). 1866. Edda Sæmundar Hinns Froða: The Edda Of Sæmund The Learned. London: Trübner & Co.
Dillmann, François-Xavier (trans.). 2003. Snorri Sturluson. L'Edda. Paris: Gallimard. First published in 1991. ISBN2-07-072114-0.
Faulkes, Anthony (ed.). 1988. Snorri Sturluson: Edda. Prologue and Gylfaginning. London: Viking Society for Northern Research. First published by Oxford University Press. ISBN0-903521-21-0.
Simek, Rudolf. 1996. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. Translated by Angela Hall. First published by Alfred Kröner Verlag in 1984. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. ISBN0-85991-513-1.