From Old Norse Tyr, the name of the god of war, law, and heroic sacrifice.
Tyr is one of the oldest divine names in the Germanic linguistic tradition, descending in an unbroken etymological line from the Proto-Indo-European root *Dyēus — the same cosmic sky-father from whom Zeus, Jupiter, and the Sanskrit Dyaus Pita all derive. In the Norse pantheon, Týr (Old Norse: Týr, pronounced roughly as "Teer") was the god of war, justice, and the orderly resolution of conflict. Unlike the savage ferocity associated with Ares or Mars, Týr embodied the specifically judicial dimension of warfare — the oaths sworn before battle, the treaties honored between enemies, the sacrifices made in the name of a greater good.
The most celebrated myth of Týr is the binding of the great wolf Fenrir. The gods needed to chain Fenrir to prevent the destruction he would cause at Ragnarök, but Fenrir would only agree to be bound if one of the gods placed a hand in his mouth as a pledge of good faith. Only Týr stepped forward, knowing that once the chains held and the pledge was broken, the wolf would take his hand.
Fenrir bit it off. The myth endures as one of mythology's most economical portraits of noble sacrifice: Týr gave his hand to save the world. As a given name in the twenty-first century, Tyr carries extraordinary compression of meaning — one syllable, one character, an entire theology of courage and justice. It appeals to parents drawn to Norse mythology and to names of stark, elemental power.