"Ulv, derived from ulfr/wulf/vlk exists and means the same thing, but it's archaic."

Though it might be archaic in Swedish, but it is also the Norwegian word for wolf. I'd guess that it is really easy to adapt the archaic Swedish word if the person has lived or spent a lot of time in Norway.

Yes, most Swedes will understand "ulv" as well, but it's associated with stories for children from long ago, if that makes sense. It exists in expressions and derived words, so "werewolf" is "varulv", and "a wolf in sheep's clothing" is "en ulv i fårakläder", for example.

So the word is still there, it's not completely taboo like the original word for bear.

I’ve never heard of a noa-name, and my attempts to Google frustratingly return only meanings of the name Noa. Do you have any good starting points for me to learn about this? It’s so very up my alley, and I’d love to learn more.

'Noa' is a Polynesian term apparently; basically it's the opposite of 'taboo' (also Polynesian.)

It's not on the face of it a very confidence-inspiring source, but r/askhistorians is as good as Reddit gets, and the poster here wrote an actual book on the subject. Give it a read: https://thingsonreddit.com/things/13812/comments/

I love /r/askhistorians, they have fantastic contributions and moderation. Thanks very much for this.

Yeah, I tried a quick googling for it as well, and got buried in resources about the name Noah instead.

I thought it would be more wide-spread, but there's wikipedia pages for it in Swedish, Norwegian and Iceland at least:

https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noaord

Fortunately Google translate does a good job with that, thanks very much. I really love learning about new quirks of language.

I’ve read it now, and that’s so cool. It also cam with some good references I’m going to get into now. Thanks again. :)

Interesting. Albanian here, your examples in our language are:

Bear: Ari Wolf: Ujk