Lavik og Brekke was established as a municipality in 1861 as a merger between the municipalities of Lavik and Brekke, which were located along the Sognefjorden. Before the merger, Lavik had 926 inhabitants and Brekke had 898, giving the new municipality a population of 1,824. On 1 January 1875, a part of Klævold municipality (to the west) with 90 inhabitants was moved to Lavik og Brekke. On 1 January 1905, the municipality was split, reverting to their previous borders, leaving Lavik and Brekke as separate municipalities once again. Before the split Lavik og Brekke had a population of 2,164. Both Lavik and Brekke were later incorporated into other municipalities, with Lavik joining Høyanger and Brekke joining Gulen.[5]
Name
The municipal name Lavik og Brekke (lit.'Lavik and Brekke') was created as a compound name by combining the names of the two predecessor municipalities.
The first name comes from the old Lavik farm (Old Norse: Lámvíkum) since the first Lavik Church was built there. The first element has an uncertain meaning. One possibility is that it comes from the word hlað which means "pile" or "stack". The last element likely comes from the word vík which means "inlet" or "cove". Historically the spelling has varied greatly. It was Laduigh in the 16th century, Laduig in the 17th century, Ladvig in the 18th century, Ladevig in the 19th century, and finally Lavik in the 20th century.[6]
The second name comes from the old Brekke farm (Old Norse: Brekka) since the first Brekke Church was built there. The name is identical to the word brekka which means "slope". Historically, the spelling of the name was not formalized until the 1800s, so spellings such as Breche, Bræcke, and Brække were also used.[7][8]
