Hello!
In today’s dispatch I thought we’d talk a bit about Icelandic naming conventions.
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To the uninitiated, Icelandic surnames can be totally confusing. In a typical Icelandic family, the mother, father, son and daughter will all have a different last name. (Which has occasionally raised eyebrows in foreign lands, at hotel receptions, for example.)
Icelanders use patronyms (or, increasingly, matronyms), which were common to the Nordic countries around the time that Iceland was settled. As you may know, that’s where all those Johnsons, Petersons, Jacksons, et al stem from.
Under this system, a child’s last name is made by taking the first name of the father or mother, and adding –son if it’s a boy, or –dóttir if it’s a girl. Taking the father’s name – the patronym – is more common, though matronyms have been catching on in more recent years.
It works like this: let’s say there’s a couple named Jón and Guðrún. They have a son named Karl, and a daughter named Katrín. If the kids (or, well, their parents) decide to use patronyms, the son’s full name will be Karl Jónsson, and the daughter’s full name Katrín Jónsdóttir.
If, however, they decide to use matronyms, their names would be Karl Guðrúnarson and Katrín Guðrúnardóttir.
If Karl has children, his son will be Karlsson (assuming he’s using patronyms) and his daughter will be Karlsdóttir. When Katrín has children (and assuming they’re using matronyms), they will be Katrínarson and/or Katrínardóttir.
So children do not have the same last name as their parents, because they have their parents’ first names as the first part of their last names.
Meanwhile, some people decide to use both patro- and matronyms, presumably in honour of both their parents. This is something that has only caught on in the last few years, and it still pretty rare. In that case they would call themselves, say, Karl Guðrúnar- og Jónsson (Karl, son of Guðrún and Jón), or simply Karl Guðrúnar Jónsson.
And in case you are wondering why the mother and father will have different names, well, that is because Icelandic women do not change their names when they get married. It’s not a thing. Foreigners who marry Icelanders are legally permitted to take the last name of their husband or wife if they so choose, even if that last name is a matro- or patronym. Example: Jane Guðmundsson. I have seen a number of such names that have been adopted by female partners of Icelandic men, but curiously, none by the male partners of Icelandic women. But surely it is only a matter of time before we see a name like Jack Gunnarsdóttir, don’t you think?
One last addendum to this. A while back, the question arose as to how non-binary people fit inside this system. After all, they identify neither as -son or -dóttir. And so, the assiduous Icelandic Language Committee, which is entrusted with creating new Icelandic words whenever one is needed, came up with the suffix -bur, an old word that had fallen into disuse, and which means “descendant of”. So a hypothetical child of Jón and Guðrún would then be Jónsbur, or Guðrúnarbur.
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This post is based on a section in my book The Little Book of the Icelanders. Want more fun facts about the Icelandic people? Check it out via the button below.