We actually do this in Ireland too when our names are pronounced in the irish language. My surname is McIntyre like my fathers but in Irish my name would be "Dheirdre Nic an tSaoir" (pronounced as "Yerdra Nic a Teer" ) which means Daughter of McIntyre whereas my fathers surname in Irish is "Mac an tSaoir" which means Son of McIntyre. What comes infront of the surname and it's pronunciation will vary depending on the surname spelling, for example the surname Byrne (pronounced as "Burn") will change to "Ni Bheirn" (pronounced as "Knee Vern") and again will be different based on gender. I hope to visit Iceland soon and hear all these great surnames for myself 👌😊
Am a few years late, but I'm really interested in Icelandic (and Old Norse) culture and language. When I was searching for how to pronounce the name Ívarr/Ívar correctly I found this and even though I already knew how it works, I still watched it. It's an amazing explanation of how it works and I kinda wish it was more used in the world
Thanks Dylano, glad you enjoyed. I was actually surprised by a podcast (Stuff You Should Know) that I was listening to recently and were covering the concept of surnames, how relatively recent these are in at least European culture.
I am from Tamil Nadu state of India (State with 78million people). In our state, everyone use our father name as surname (just father name without saying son or daughter). Now people are starting to use both mother and father name. My father name is Solaiselvam so my name is as displayed. We can also short it as S. Vijayakumar, just first letter of father name. I always think, only lucky people are born in Iceland
Thanks for that! I thought I'd heard that from a colleague once that this was also the tradition in a part of India. That is what I was thinking about when I mentioned this existing in Asia, I just couldn't find the details so I didn't want to be specific. Again, thanks for enlightening me!
This is so good 🔥🔥 in really into this just for the cultural value and significance that this has because a lot of people can't even trace their family tree up to even 4 or 5 generations back but with this naming system it would be so much easier and better 🔥🔥👍👍👍
@@ivargu My daughter was working on a project for school about her cultural background and was explaining the history of vinarterta coming to Canada with Icelandic immigrants in the late 1800's . Is it true that it really isn't that popular in Iceland and is more of a Icelandic-Canadian thing?
@@blainebennett It's still around, although seems to be slowly fading away. Vínarterta (also known as "randalín") is something very typically baked and served by my grandparents generation. You can still buy it at every grocery store or bakery here but it's already lost the popularity contest to more internationally recognizable things like donuts. Damn though... now I just really crave a piece of "randalín" :)
Slavic people inherited this approach from Vikings more than 1000 years ago. My full name roughly translates as: Alexander, son of Alexander, operator of a plow
1:51 we actually have something like that in Ukraine! for ex. I'm Vilneuv (last name) Eugen (my first name) Artemovych (my name of my father) so his name is Artem.
I have 2 icelandic friends who have middle names (Ingi and Atli) and I've seen others who also have middle names, so are those names family names or just second names?
These would just be second names. Certain names are even very common as second names (middle names) and the ones you mentioned are definitely on that common list :)
My Great Great Grandmother and two of her sisters immigrated to the U.S together from Sweden. It's been so confusing trying to understand the whole last name system from that side of the family. I'm guessing the last name system there is similar to Iceland.
Thanks for stopping by! Modern day Sweden uses the same system as the U.S. and the other 95% of the world. I would think that generally speaking you'd have to go back a few centuries to see the same system that we have here in the rest of the nordic countries but of course there might well have been parts of Sweden where this was still the practice in the 19th century. Interesting to hear. :)
My name is Eriksson because my father's father's father's father's father wa called Erik. He was born in 1810 in Sweden and I was bor in in Sweden too but 173 years later. So all the people related by blood to Erik born after him was called Eriksson even though it was a daughter. I know this because I have done some genealogy. My other name Kihlberg is the old spelling of kil , a village close to Säffle in Värmland Sweden
Is Iceland the only nordic country to use son and dóttir? My great grandmothers last name is Andersdóttir but her husband was Swedish so I'm wondering if she was Icelandic.
This was common in other nordic countries as well back in the day and about a century ago you would still have seen it in Sweden. It faded away in the first part of the 20th century and by mid-century I believe it was completely gone there, replaced by family surnames. Perhaps some Swedes can chime in on this.
@@ivargu well she did marry a Swede and she was born in the 1850's so that settles that 😂 I just haven't found her parents surnames yet so I'll keep looking into it, thank you for the info. I'm currently watching Katla on Netflix and thanks to your videos among others I can understand a bit of Icelandic now 😉 have you seen it?
on the part about nonbinary people - I looked it up, and it said that "-bur" can be used as a suffix. have you seen this in your day-to-day life at all since you've made this video? (I'm nonbinary so I'm curious about this haha)
Hey there. I presume that was just quick or slurry speech... as many of us are guilty of 😅. It is always "-dóttir" and should have a pronounced harsh 'R' at the end.
What about juniors? Like men who give their son the same name as them? Example my dad name I la Michael.. if he names me Michael would my name be Michael Michaelson?
We do have people with the name dotter in Sweden, just not common. Girl in my school back in the day had the surname Persdotter. So it exists, just not common
What about a child with dual nationality in Iceland for example a child born in Iceland with a Icelandic mother and a South African father or vice versa a Icelandic father with a South African mother. How would the names work with a child of dual nationality born in Iceland
If the father is naturalized citizen of Iceland and likely doesn't have a Icelandic name (unless he changed it for various reasons), probably the matronymic would be used.
That could indeed happen, although I personally know examples of families where the naturalized citizen father's first name - a name which doesn't exist in Icelandic traditions - is used to form the traditional Icelandic patronymical last name (e.g. the Icelandic born children of a Mr. Kenneth Smith being called "Kennethsson", and "Kennethsdóttir").
When the Iceland's surname system is so confusing, that you're just realising that they actually DO HAVE last names! FFS, I really thought they don't have any Edit: It is even more complicated!
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this dude helped my teaching so much he deserves 668k subs
Hey thanks! I appreciate that! :)
Thanks. I promise to use this knowledge responsibly
With great knowledge, comes great power 😜
Finally, I have worked out exactly how Icelandic surnames are created! Well....plus the exceptions....and the "do-it-you-own-way" opportunities! 🙂
This actually makes perfect sense if you think of people living in small clans or tribes. It probably doesn't really make sense in our modern world.
We actually do this in Ireland too when our names are pronounced in the irish language. My surname is McIntyre like my fathers but in Irish my name would be "Dheirdre Nic an tSaoir" (pronounced as "Yerdra Nic a Teer" ) which means Daughter of McIntyre whereas my fathers surname in Irish is "Mac an tSaoir" which means Son of McIntyre. What comes infront of the surname and it's pronunciation will vary depending on the surname spelling, for example the surname Byrne (pronounced as "Burn") will change to "Ni Bheirn" (pronounced as "Knee Vern") and again will be different based on gender. I hope to visit Iceland soon and hear all these great surnames for myself 👌😊
Am a few years late, but I'm really interested in Icelandic (and Old Norse) culture and language. When I was searching for how to pronounce the name Ívarr/Ívar correctly I found this and even though I already knew how it works, I still watched it. It's an amazing explanation of how it works and I kinda wish it was more used in the world
Thanks Dylano, glad you enjoyed. I was actually surprised by a podcast (Stuff You Should Know) that I was listening to recently and were covering the concept of surnames, how relatively recent these are in at least European culture.
I loved this so much! You did a great job! Hope your channel grows.
Thanks! I really appreciate that! :)
I am from Tamil Nadu state of India (State with 78million people). In our state, everyone use our father name as surname (just father name without saying son or daughter). Now people are starting to use both mother and father name. My father name is Solaiselvam so my name is as displayed. We can also short it as S. Vijayakumar, just first letter of father name. I always think, only lucky people are born in Iceland
Thanks for that! I thought I'd heard that from a colleague once that this was also the tradition in a part of India. That is what I was thinking about when I mentioned this existing in Asia, I just couldn't find the details so I didn't want to be specific. Again, thanks for enlightening me!
This is so good 🔥🔥 in really into this just for the cultural value and significance that this has because a lot of people can't even trace their family tree up to even 4 or 5 generations back but with this naming system it would be so much easier and better 🔥🔥👍👍👍
Excellent breakdown. Helps me educate my little Icelanders here in Canada!
Great to be of help :)
@@ivargu My daughter was working on a project for school about her cultural background and was explaining the history of vinarterta coming to Canada with Icelandic immigrants in the late 1800's . Is it true that it really isn't that popular in Iceland and is more of a Icelandic-Canadian thing?
@@blainebennett It's still around, although seems to be slowly fading away. Vínarterta (also known as "randalín") is something very typically baked and served by my grandparents generation. You can still buy it at every grocery store or bakery here but it's already lost the popularity contest to more internationally recognizable things like donuts. Damn though... now I just really crave a piece of "randalín" :)
Fascinating !!
Thank you, very informative! Glad I found your channel
I appreciate that! Glad you liked it!
Thanks for this awesome video. Much love from Australia
Glad you enjoyed it John. Thanks for stopping by!
Thank you for the upload! Super informative.
Thank you, happy that it was of help :)
Slavic people inherited this approach from Vikings more than 1000 years ago. My full name roughly translates as: Alexander, son of Alexander, operator of a plow
Thanks that was perfect!!
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it! :)
1:51 we actually have something like that in Ukraine! for ex. I'm Vilneuv (last name) Eugen (my first name) Artemovych (my name of my father) so his name is Artem.
I have 2 icelandic friends who have middle names (Ingi and Atli) and I've seen others who also have middle names, so are those names family names or just second names?
These would just be second names. Certain names are even very common as second names (middle names) and the ones you mentioned are definitely on that common list :)
My Great Great Grandmother and two of her sisters immigrated to the U.S together from Sweden. It's been so confusing trying to understand the whole last name system from that side of the family. I'm guessing the last name system there is similar to Iceland.
Thanks for stopping by! Modern day Sweden uses the same system as the U.S. and the other 95% of the world. I would think that generally speaking you'd have to go back a few centuries to see the same system that we have here in the rest of the nordic countries but of course there might well have been parts of Sweden where this was still the practice in the 19th century. Interesting to hear. :)
My name is Eriksson because my father's father's father's father's father wa called Erik. He was born in 1810 in Sweden and I was bor in in Sweden too but 173 years later. So all the people related by blood to Erik born after him was called Eriksson even though it was a daughter. I know this because I have done some genealogy. My other name Kihlberg is the old spelling of kil , a village close to Säffle in Värmland Sweden
Is Iceland the only nordic country to use son and dóttir? My great grandmothers last name is Andersdóttir but her husband was Swedish so I'm wondering if she was Icelandic.
This was common in other nordic countries as well back in the day and about a century ago you would still have seen it in Sweden. It faded away in the first part of the 20th century and by mid-century I believe it was completely gone there, replaced by family surnames. Perhaps some Swedes can chime in on this.
@@ivargu well she did marry a Swede and she was born in the 1850's so that settles that 😂 I just haven't found her parents surnames yet so I'll keep looking into it, thank you for the info. I'm currently watching Katla on Netflix and thanks to your videos among others I can understand a bit of Icelandic now 😉 have you seen it?
@@luminousluxuries No, I've actually not watched it yet... I'm really bad when it comes to keeping up with TV series I want to watch. :)
on the part about nonbinary people - I looked it up, and it said that "-bur" can be used as a suffix. have you seen this in your day-to-day life at all since you've made this video? (I'm nonbinary so I'm curious about this haha)
I've not seen it used in practice, but I've heard of it. I personally like it. It rolls of the tongue nicely and fits snugly into the language.
Hello. I have heard a woman’s name pronounced “ dottich” a little like “ Scottish”. Even though it was read as “ dottir.” Is that a thing too?
Hey there. I presume that was just quick or slurry speech... as many of us are guilty of 😅. It is always "-dóttir" and should have a pronounced harsh 'R' at the end.
What about juniors? Like men who give their son the same name as them? Example my dad name I la Michael.. if he names me Michael would my name be Michael Michaelson?
Correct, the same rule still applies. My hypothetical son "Ívar" would be "Ívar Ívarsson"
I wonder with no clan names passing on their is no family rivalry like the Hatfields vs the McCoys. That would be good.
Oh, when there is a will there's a way ;)
Sweden has it as well, Karls son, Gustavs son etc etc we don't have dottir/daughter.
We do have people with the name dotter in Sweden, just not common. Girl in my school back in the day had the surname Persdotter. So it exists, just not common
That's quite interesting. I had no idea that existed anywhere else :) Thanks for sharing!
I read it. 😀
:D
What about a child with dual nationality in Iceland for example a child born in Iceland with a Icelandic mother and a South African father or vice versa a Icelandic father with a South African mother. How would the names work with a child of dual nationality born in Iceland
Those things are taken into consideration, so parents from other traditions are given flexibility to respect those.
Markus Gaius Oviusson
I worked with Icelanders years ago so i learned the naming conventions. My question is: how do you know who your cousins are?
I'd expect you to be on a first name basis with your cousins ;)
This begs the question: With trans people, are they able to change their last name as well when they transition?
Yes, absolutely, the last name will change accordingly and the form is left up to the individual, with masculine, feminine, or neutral options.
If the father is naturalized citizen of Iceland and likely doesn't have a Icelandic name (unless he changed it for various reasons), probably the matronymic would be used.
That could indeed happen, although I personally know examples of families where the naturalized citizen father's first name - a name which doesn't exist in Icelandic traditions - is used to form the traditional Icelandic patronymical last name (e.g. the Icelandic born children of a Mr. Kenneth Smith being called "Kennethsson", and "Kennethsdóttir").
So, Gunnar Gunnarssonsson would make no sense?
No, that wouldn't happen :) If you have a paternal chain of men all named Gunnar, they would all be "Gunnar Gunnarsson".
In that case he lied! And gunnarssonsson is not actually his son!
@@ImaHappy plot twist!
I was just thinking about that skit when I saw his last name
When the Iceland's surname system is so confusing, that you're just realising that they actually DO HAVE last names! FFS, I really thought they don't have any
Edit: It is even more complicated!