The history of the word freyr is very curious.  The root is found in pri, Skt., to love or rejoice, the Zend frî, the Greek φἱλος.  To be glad was also to be free; so freon or frigon means to free and to love, and thence free in all its forms (N. fri; Goth. frige; H.G. frei; L.G. freoh).  Thus, again, the Germans came by froh, and we by fresh.  Fro was both glad and dear; and as in Gothic frowida was joy, so is freude in modern German; and we exult in frolics and freaks.  He who loved was known by the present participle, frigonds, the friend of modern English, the same in all our Teutonic tongues; and as the effect of love is peace, the term was fred or fried, our Saxon frith, which we have lost in the French-Latin word.  To be free was to be noble, so the free noble was Frauja, the name by which Ulfilas always translates Κὑριος, in the New Testament, by a beautiful analogy, showing, indeed, that our Lord is our Friend and our Redeemer, loving us, and setting us free.
    Frauja, or free, was the lord and master, so his wife was likewise frea, both the beloved and the free woman; the northern frue, German frau, and Dutch vrowe, all, as donna had done in Italy, becoming the generic term for woman.
    Out of all the derivatives of this fertile and beautiful term, there were large contributions to mythology, and a great number of names.
    Freyr, lord, lover, was once a god of very high rank, lord of sun and moon, hermaphrodite, and regulating the seasons, blessing marriage, and guarding purity: and this was probably a universal idea brought from Asia.
    As old notions formed into mythic tales, and the gods grew human, the wife of Odin was invented, and what could she be but the frau, the lady of Asgard, Frigga?  Again, Freyr was brought down from his mysterious vagueness, and turned into a nephew of Odin, with the moon to take care of, and, moreover, was disintegrated into a brother and sister, called Freyr and Freya.
    The sixth day of the week had probably originally belonged to Freyr, but Frigga got possession of it; and, in right of her presiding over love and marriage, she was considered to be Venus; and in France and Italy her day is still Vendredi and Venerdi, while we have it as Friday, the Germans as Freitag, the North as Fredag. (History of Christian Names, Yonge, 1884)