-son and -sen in Scandinavian names
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- čas přidán 11. 10. 2019
- A look at how some Scandinavian last names came to end in -sen (e.g. Andersen) and others in -son (e.g. Anderson, Andersson).
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Here in the Faroe Islands we are kind of stuck between Denmark and Iceland. We have both -son and -sen. If someone's called -son they're using the old patrillineal form, whereas if they're called -sen they're using the newer, family name form. Funny thing, my name is Zachariassen and my brother's name is Zachariasson. He used to have the same name as me, but changed it. Our father was called Zacharias Zachariassen, so both of our last names work and literally mean the same thing, though mine is the family name while his is the patrillineal one.
very cool, thanks for sharing
The patronymes were frozen in The Kingdom of Denmark by law in the 1800s, this seems to take effect in the Faroes around 1846. At that point we start to see people with frozen -sen names (Best indicator are women with -sen names, which they wouldn't have had according to the older practice). More for those foreign to the Faroes: The reason for Faroese people having Danish written names at that time, would of course be the standardization of language within the Dano-Norwegian Realms in the 1500s, where the political language was shifted to Danish for both realms when administration of the Norwegian Area (mainland Norway and affiliated areas) was moved to Copenhagen and the religious language became Danish with the Reformation.
After 1845 we see two things happening, the above mentioned freezing of -sen names and then also Faroese people buying new last names, which usually would be location based names where their family had some connection to (all from landmarks to villages/towns). Later on these location based names have been translated back to Faroese by some branches of these families, as well as people later on (after Faroese was allowed as a political/religious language) taking Faroese spelled location-based last names. -sen last names have also been translated to Faroese, in cases where they are just translated as a last name. The return of patronymes/matronymes seems to be a more recent thing and in many cases they serve as middle names, though they are used in the place of last names as well.
So you could call yourself Arni Zachariasdottir Zachariassen?
@@majan6267 I'm sure "Arni" is a man's name, so I don't think he could claim to be anyone's daughter. But I think it could work like that for a woman. Does in Iceland, anyway, where you could meet someone like "Helga Pálsdóttir Thorarensen".
@@thossi09 oh, sorry, i'm not accoustomed to nordic names, so sorry to Arni
This is one of those topics I have always wondered about, but never enough to actually take the time to search out the info for myself.
Takk😀 Dette har eg lurt på lenge.
Vidar Alfsen jag med, skönt att det finns amerikaner som kan förklara för oss hur saker ligger till med våra språk.
@@sebastianklasson6125 Præcis - godt han kan hjælpe os med at forstå os selv 🤗😆😂
I recently found out that my last name came from my great great grandfather, a Sami man named Andreas (His Christian name). He had no last name or at least no recorded last name and when he got children was the time when the laws in Norway changed to where everyone needed to have a family name. So he became Andreas Andreassen. I still have his last name even though it's so many generations ago.
Sen names are very common in Northern Norway since there where so many Sami people and Kven people who changed their name or adopted a sen name to appear Norwegian. Also because of the forced Norwegianisation from 1850's - 1970's.
In Norway Andreassen is just a common lame name, but in Australia where I live now, it's a cool name that no one can pronounce :D
Your sami ancestor did most likely have a family name, but it wasn’t registered because of forcing the samiis into norwegian society, also forcing them to change it to a norwegian name. This was definatley the case in Sweden and my last name is names, my close family name, a -son name, and then the whole extended family name, which is the sami name.
It is somewhat slowly changing with people dropping their -son names and keeping their sami name.
@@gellawella probably, I wish I could know what the saami name was.
@@sarahgilbert8036 Hougen is actually not too uncommon. There are a couple names pronounced with the Norwegian AU sound that’s spelled OU.
For example Schou which is actually Skau meaning forest. There is a borough in Oslo called Schous plass, Schou square and many Norwegians who are not from Oslo pronounce it like Shoos because they think it’s German.
My last boss in Norway before I moved to Australia came from Valda in Norway and he spelled Haugen as Hougen.
@@ganjafi59 I understand that. I guess you or someone close to you have search for the name? I hope you’ll find it eventually! 🙏🏼
@@gellawella I'll never be able to find the name. Hopefully somone in my family can
In the Netherlands, we have Jansen/Janssen (which is the equivalent to English Johnson/Johnsson and nordic Jensen) but we also have Janszoon, which is a more archaic form, but it uses the modern-day Dutch word for son "zoon".
I have been binging your videos the past two days, I've always been interested in old norse and Asagudarna!
Tusen takk for det. Jeg har saa mange ganger proeved aa forklare det for folk. Jeg? Estnisk, men foedt i NYC, bodde i Oslo nesten 8 aar, naa paa Aurora. (Har glemt meget!!! Det er for lenge siden.)
I always enjoy your linguistic videos. This was something I'd often wondered, so thanks for addressing it.
In the United States, it was sometimes up to how the name was transcribed when emigrating from Scandinavia. When my family began coming to the US from Denmark and Sweden in the late 1800s, our name was Johannesson. My patrilineal line became Johnson, but some of the siblings/cousins who emigrated became Johansson, Johansen, Jonson, Johnston, and Johnstone. We’ve since lost contact with those arms of the family.
The form is often pronounced "-o" or "-a" in central or Norwegian dialects. So someone named "Olav Persen" official in 1920 Norway would be talked about locally as "Ol' Persa".
Same for Jamtish, Olof Persson would also be "Ol Persa". This -a goes back to an older nasal schwa -ę which of course is from an even older unstressed -en. So, Olof Persson, pronounced "Ol Persa" in Jamtish, would in the 1600's be more like "Ola Persę" and in the 1500's "Olav Peðersen". Quoting the document in Diplomatarium Norvegicum dated January 31, 1530, in Hackås ("Hakaas") mentioning a bunch of first and last names including Olav ("Olaff") and Peðersen ("Pedherson"):
"... nempniss Ørian Karlson j Haaff Anderss j Bierme Lasse j Aasom Nielss Pedherson j Sande Sigwrdh j Hara Nielss Andersson j Gerde Torgauth j Østanaar Peder Swenson j Sidhe Olaff Ketilson j Monstadh Paal j Grønuikin Nisse j Swensaas Peder Andersson j Ffeistadh ...".
Interestingly, the American surname Tussey originates from Olof G Thorsson (as it's usually spelled) born 1615 in Offerdal in Jämtland and who emigrated to New Sweden colony after Jämtland had become Swedish (hence why his name is spelled in a Swedish manner). Most likely he was natively called "Ole' Torssę" when he was alive in the 1600's and that explains why Thorsson has become Tussey. Tussey is simply how Torssę would be spelled in 1600's English. On the Geni page they discuss it though without giving the insighted explanation given here:
"The name Thorsson was not a surname, but rather Olof's patronymic, meaning that he was Olof, son of Thor. However, in succeeding generations it became the family surname (spelled Toarson, or variants thereof), later evolving into Tossa, Tossava and finally Tussey."
I think Tossa is reflecting that in the 1600's the nasal schwa -ę was probably equally well perceived as an -a. I got no idea what the -va in Tossava reflects, maybe you got an idea?
Thanks for explaining this. I've always assumed that the patronymic endings were always referring to the word "son", and in Swedish it makes sense for a native speaker, but I never knew why it was -sen in Danish and (most) Norwegian.
When the issue has been discussed I've just kept to the standard Swedish answer "Dem Danes be crazy". :)
I'm no linguist but this has been common fact for the last 1800 years in Scandinavia... Oh and why it's sen because the Danes are lazy. That's why they say bm instead of den. And I'm also lazy hence why I don't like speaking Swedish. Alikor åhuansian vejn äder kartofflor. Unless you're from Skåne, you can't understand that.
@@livedandletdie Bm instead of den? I am Danish and I have no idea what you mean. Unless you men dn instead of den? That makes more sense since it removes the vocal from the word 'den', which many Danes tend to do with some words. I have two parents with very bad hearing, though, so I have gotten used to speaking more clearly, at least when I talk to my parents which probably makes me sound like a character from a Danish movie from the 50's where the Danish language was a lot more intelligible. lol
By the way, it's 'sen' by the end of most Norwegian surnames as well. That makes Norwegians lazy, too. ;)
Henrik Eriksson dem Danes be crazy anyway 😉
@@swedishmake-upgeek5650 But the Norwegians use 'sen' as well. 'Dem Norwegians be crazy', too, it seems. And you Swedes also for different reasons, but that's another story. ;)
Blooming LOVE your modern stuff JC
så morsomt at du poster videoer om temaer som dette, og så fra Colorado da, den eneste delstaten jeg faktisk har besökt.
Note that Dutch has many patronymic names in -sen as well (like Jansen/Janszen etc.), sometimes only the -s remains: Hendriks/Hendricks/Hendrix (based on time of spelling conventions chosen; many relic forms still exist).
We have them in northern Germany too
Wow, interesting! Still more commonalities between Danish and Dutch and German.
It depended on the location within the Netherlands whether the patronymic system was kept for a long time or not. Part of my family tree uses inherited last names at least up to the 1500s, another part used patronyms until Napoleon forced all Dutch to assume an inherited last name. I have no clue why my ancestors chose the last name I have now, but they did keep the patronyms as middle name for some generations. In the case of the patronym Johannes, they didn't even bother to add -sen and kept the last s as it was. And part of my family tree did the hybrid method with the patronym as a middle name for a long time already. One of the areas where patronyms were persistent is the Dutch Friesland, an area with lots of cultural ties to the other Frisians along the German and Danish coast.
Btw, the forced assuming of a last name (if you didn't have one already) under Napoleon led to a lot of 'creative' last names for a while. But that is another story.
Same in germany -en indicates the paternal line
I always wondered about whether names were still retained as the fathers name + son/sen or if there had been a switch to inherited names so this answers that question for me too!
I am from Iceland and have Jónsson as a patronymic name 😃
I found out I am mostly Scandinavian a few years back and have been pretty interested in Norse culture ever since! My maiden name is Anderson so when I looked up the origin of Anderson and this video came up first I got really excited!!
I wish you could make a DVD with all the videos on it.
As a half swede half norwegian this has crossed my mind many times, thank you
usually I skip over ads in videos, but I have to say that those Grimfrost bits are fun to watch!
I recently got a son, and when the papers for the name we wanted to pick came in the mailbox, it actually said that we are allowed to give him my first name + a "son" suffix after as a surname. The same but " dotter", if we had gotten a daughter instead. So apparently you can still do the traditional surname in Sweden, it's just not that common anymore.
Thanks Doc! details are where its at. Be well Sir
ᚦᚢᚱ ᚢᛁᚴᛁ
It's not often that I know the answer before watching the video! All hail Thorvaldsson!
This in very interesting and very neat. Thank you
The transformation to 'sen' also applies to Dutch names. Old Dutch was Janszoon (johnson) but became Jansen.
We have Jansen in germany too
Adriaen, the terrible turk
My grandfather was 100% Swedish. I was told that -son is used in Sweden and -sen in Norway.
Biker Cell Church - It's sson in Sweden and sen in Norway and Denmark. [Genealogy research in all three countries, and I have documented ancestors from those three countries plus four others. DNA confirms my 55 years worth of genealogy research.]
@@bevanderson6245 Actually the double s is Anders son so andersson, but Anderson is the english version of Ander's Son or Andersson. However not all families in Scandinavia use this kind of naming style, many use actual naturenames such as Lundqvist, Lundkvist etc etc for example my last name is Lindahl which is Lind and Ahl two types of trees. So if someone got a naturename then you are most likely of Scandinavian or Germanic descent.
@@godsaveme I only know from what I heard verbally from my father. I say my grandfather was Swedish meaning that both his parents came to the US from Sweden. My grandfather could speak the language but had never been to Sweden....
@@DougShoeBushcraft You probably are Swedish ;), you are more than welcome to come here.
@@godsaveme yes 1/4 Swede. You live there?
As someone who does genealogy research in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden (and has ancestors from all three countries plus four others), the Norwegians and Danes used sen or datter for the suffix after the father's name. The Swedes used a sson or dotter suffix after the father's name. The suffix is often abbreviated to s (sen/sson) or d/dr/dtr (datter/dotter) in the records, and sometimes only the father's first name is listed and the reader is to assume the suffix should follow whether the minister wrote it out or not. The people of Iceland and the Faroe Islands still use the patronymic naming system today. [There are such things as matronymic names (mother's first name + sen/sson or datter/dotter), but they haven't cropped up in my family history.] In American Lutheran church records founded by Scandinavians from the late 19th-early 20th century, the column headers for birth/baptism, confirmation, marriage, death/burial records are listed. Their congregation membership records for entire families list the date and location of birth/baptism (and confirmation, if the person is old enough), as well as the year of immigration, so they are a good source of location of birth of Scandinavian ancestors. I actually prefer doing genealogy research in those countries because I don't lose women to name changes with marriage. Women kept their own names their entire lives.
The women didn't use sen/sson in their patronymic names until they got to America where they had to select a surname to fit in (greatest influx of Scandinavian immigrants was between 1880-1900, altho they started arriving a decade or so earlier). Sometimes their patronymic names ending in datter/dotter were changed to their father's first name + son, and sometimes they used their father's patronymic name as their American surname when they didn't use a location name as their American surname. If they used a location name, it might be their birth farm, one of the farms they lived on after they were born, or it might be the last place they lived before emigrating. One family I researched knew their Norwegian ancestor changed his name to an American name he liked on a whim, but they also knew his patronymic name and the port of embarkation so I didn't have to search too far to find those records in Norway (US census data shows he switched back and forth between his patronym and his chosen-on-a-whim new surname before the new name took hold).
My paternal grandfather had the patronymic name Andreasson at birth. In the first record of him and his brother in America the spelling had morphed into Anderson and stayed that way (ditto their maternal uncle who had emigrated before either of them did so).
Denmark started using the father's patronym by around the mid-19th century, but the ministers writing the birth/baptism records continued writing the proper patronyms for males and females for some time after that in some locations.
By law, Sweden started using permanent surnames in 1902, so the surname might be the patronymic name of the person as recorded at birth, or that person's father's patronymic name (depending on the HFL or census information listed)..., or it might be a location name like the farm where they were born, or the farm where they are currently living, or occasionally even an occupation name (altho occupation names are more often found in the United Kingdom).
By law, Norway started using permanent surnames in 1923, but some people started using permanent surnames (either a patronym or a location name) by about the 1900 (some even earlier if they lived in port cities; out in rural areas they were slower to change). That may have been the influence of relatives who had gone to America who had gone to using a single surname to fit in in their new country, or because they left for America within five years of the census. In one side lineage for a family in Wisconsin, the father's name was listed as it was in Norway, and the children all had their own patronymic names listed (the father's first name + sen or datter). By the time they moved to Minnesota when the offspring were adults (or nearly so), they were still using their patronymic names, although their offspring used what was their father's American surname by then (which was the patronymic name in the WI census record).
When the plague swept Europe in 1347/49, it killed off millions, and the noble families and royalty in Norway died. Altho it functioned independently, Norway was under the protection of Denmark thereafter. The people writing the records were often from Denmark, or had been sent to Denmark or Germany for their education, so one runs into Germanic spellings in some records, but the written language was heavily influenced by Denmark. By 1814 Denmark was losing land in the Napoleonic wars, so the Norwegians wrote their own constitution which was signed on 17 May 1814 (Syttende Mai ), and ceded themselves to Sweden's protection even though they still functioned as a separate country. Thereafter, the intelligentsia of Norway not only wanted to become completely independent again, they were worried about their language and wanted to "Norwegianize Norwegian" because they feared their language was being corrupted by Swedish (altho those two languages are mutually intelligible, and the written forms of all three languages is mutually intelligible, but spoken Danish is very guttural, difficult to speak and listen to). In 1905 Norway became an entirely separate country again (not just functioned separately as it had done since the 14th century). Because the language and customs of Norway were closer to Denmark, they chose the second son of the royal family in Denmark as their new king of Norway, and his descendants are the royal family in Norway today.
In any case, if someone with Scandinavian heritage decides to research their ancestors, the records are online (free in Norway and Denmark, for a fee in Sweden), the first thing one must thoroughly understand is the patronymic naming system and how it works, how the patronymic name changes with each generation in most cases. Then there's the matter of the phonetic spellings, the three extra vowels, and the letters of the alphabet that are used interchangeably (W/V, I/J/Y, K/Q, T/D), and certain Gothic spellings and letters in some cases.... I've been doing genealogy research for 55 years, so I'm familiar with various language quirks and penmanship in all three countries. :-)
Patronymic naming in the Faroes is allowed, but is more of a recent thing and the patronymes/matronymes are very often used as middle names (also a quite recent thing in the Faroes... as in the past there have been people with up to as many as 18 first names (in extreme cases where the first children born in a village after a tragedy have been named for all the dead men).
However, the freezing of the patronymes (which were recorded in Danish, because the religious language was Danish at the time, due to the Reformation) seems to have taken effect in the Faroes around the late 1840s, as that is when you start seeing women with -sen names and a lot of people buying location-based names to serve as family names (ættarnavn)... with all of these written in Danish, as Faroese didn't emerge as a political/religious language again until the late 1930s.
@@Rovarin + Thank you for the added information on Faroese patronymes/matronymes! :-) I didn't realize Danish rule of the Faroes went back that far, but that's what happened with some of the Danish names for my ancestors in Denmark: around the 1840s the patronymic names were replaced with surnames..., but not always, and census names don't necessarily match church records. An added quirk in one of the parish records for one of my Danish lines is that the pastor wrote Bødker (cooper/barrel maker) for the family name, used it both as a middle name and as a last name, only I don't have any in census data that says the men in the family were coopers, just lumbermen, farmers, carpenters, and (presumably wooden) shoemakers. The switch between the patronymic name and a surname took place between my gr-gr-grandfather and his father before him. There was another family that had a lot of Hans Larsens and Lars Hansens, and the recorded gave them an added name, so I don't know if that was intentional or just the recorder's way of distinguishing one family from the other with similar names. The initial B made it into the first state census after they arrived in America, but then it disappears (I'm still not certain if it means Bodker or not). Some sons kept the Larsen spelling, others went with the American spelling Larson.
There is a lovely young singer from the Faroe Islands I particularly love to listen to: Eivør Pálsdóttir. She is extremely talented, sings in several languages, and I have many of her songs marked (she also has a Wikipedia page). The first song I listened to of hers is still my favorite: Trøllabundin (at least two versions online of her singing the same song). There used to be a translation on a different video; that's no longer online, but I do know what most of the words mean and I've listened so often I can follow the words and even pronounce them correctly. This version gives me chills up and down my spine every time I hear it:
czcams.com/video/LpiFmZLICgM/video.html
I don't know if you're familiar with Eivør's work or not, but she has a very versatile and lovely voice.
Bev Anderson have you found anyone in your family tree that is named Åkerman (mostly from Kalmar, and specifically from Västervik) or Leijon (from Stockholm area I think)?
@@bevanderson6245 Technically the Faroes have been under Danish rule since the Treaty of Kiel, where the Dano-Norwegian Realms were sundered and mainland Norway was awarded to Sweden (to actually become part of Sweden... the reason got the union with Sweden was because of the Danish Crown prince's plan to circumvent the Treaty of Kiel). The West Nordic posessions of Norway as well as the colony of Greenland (which was considered Norwegian, even if it had been under a Danish Royal Trade House for quite some time) were awarded to the Danish king as personal possessions. It wasn't until 1849 that these loose ends were deliberated upon politically, as the Danes introduced their Constitution, where Iceland opted to stay outside the Constitution, the Danish delegate representing the Faroes fought tooth and nail to make the Faroes part of the Constitution (to protect the people there) as most Danish politicians thought of the Faroese as almost sub-human, barely above the populations of Danish colonies, but as the Faroese were a Nordic people related to the Danes they were persuaded to include them. So officially the Faroe Islands became part of the Danish Realm in 1852 when the Danish Constitution was illegally implemented in the Faroes.
@@Rovarin - Thank you for the added history. It is fascinating (to me - I love history in many forms, but I have a special interest in Scandinavian history from the very earliest proto-Vikings forward, British history from pre-Neolithic forward, and early Celtic history in Europe and the British Isles; I wrote a paper in college about La Tene and Hallstatt cultures). I do know that the Norwegian Constitution from 17 May 1814 is when Norway was transferred to Swedish rule (according to my Norwegian teacher), and I try to follow the Syttende Mai parades from NRK on a live webcast every year. The separation from Sweden occurred in 1905, and they had a special centennial celebration in 2005 because of that.
I'm a Danish -sen. Good to understand the difference in the two endings
Great video thanks for the explanation!
Skàl
When my great-great-great-great granddad went from Iceland to Denmark to study (with ambitions to advance in the Danish system in one of his bags), he changed his "Þórarinsson" to "Thorarensen". Similar story for the Thoroddsens; but apparently a son of Þorlákur went for Latin instead and became Thorlacius.
Makes sense didnt know about the danish stuff even though im swedish
Awesome info
GOD BLESS YOU for this information my last is Ison
It would be interesting to explore the pronunciations of d and g in Scandinavian today, as they are actually quite different (At least between Norwegian/Swedish and Danish)
Regarding the footnote you had about losing the genetive S, why did this happen? Is there a particular reason for it? Was it just easier when acclimitizing to america?
Tak ... Danke ... Gracias Profesor. Thank ya kindly.
Thank you! My grandmother was a Swede from Västergötland whose surname was Peterson, which makes me the natural enemy of all Petersens! LOL!
Jovan Weismiller What about the Pedersens? The Pettersons?
Is a jab at the lang standing conflict between Denmark and Sweden.
To hell with those Danes ;) your last name looks interesting, seems as if somebody anglizised the German name "Weißmüller" (white miller) or "Wiesmüller" (meadow miller)
@@majan6267, close, but my great grandparents spelt it with one 's' Weismüller. I like to think it's from weisemüller, 'a wise and judicious person who grinds grain'. LOL!
@@jovanweismiller7114 Well that sounds quite nice
Thanks for clearing that up. Even in my large partially Scandinavian genealogy doing mormon family, that was not clear.
Great video, I feel like it was just for me! :p
My husband's paternal grandfather came from Sweden to No. America ca. 1905. He was Carl Carlson, son of Karl Svensson, son of Sven... He dropped the second 's' and changed the K to C, and here in America Carlson has become the inherited last name.
The spelling wasn't accurate back in Sweden either.
This is the best Scandinavian/Nordic culture/history channel outside Europe in the whole world! Professor Jackson is phenomenal and his way of teaching goes beyond the walls of any university. Thank you so much for your generosity professor!
I have family members who are Anderson's, they are Swedish. I have always wondered about my last name, Homelvig. As far as I know its Norwegian, which was weird to find out that in Norway is a place called Hommelvik.
Apparently the Norwegian spelling has changed over the years. Here is a random page of people being baptized in the local church in 1842. They spell it Homelvig or Hommelvig. www.digitalarkivet.no/view/261/hd00000000263926 (Google for "homelvig site:no" for more Norwegian pages)
Funny you would say that! My Swedish lineage is Anderson (later changed to Andersen when they migrated to Norway), and parts of my family live in Hommelvik in Malvik kommune!
My great grandfather was the first to use Larson as a surname, his father was a Larsson who was actually the son of Lars and the patronymics go back as far as I've been able to trace (1653).
Great video. But when did Nelson and Jackson become first names? This always confused me.
i would assume nelson stems from nielsen and jackson from jacobsson
since nel is not a name i have ever seen and nielsen is common in denmark
i have also never met a jackson in scandinavia but plenty of jakobsen, jackobsson and other slight variances
@@magnusorn7313 Nilsson is common in Sweden as well, which could be another origin.
Generally, the names Niels, Nils, Nels etc. are descended from the grecoroman(?) Nicolaus.
The question is "how did they become _first names_ " not "how did they come about as names."
Another Elvis - As family names, often a mother's surname before marriage. If you do genealogy research in colonial New England records you find either first or middle names are often the mother's maiden name, or a family name somewhere along the way. To this day in my family the middle names for boys are often the father's first name, mother's birth name, grandfather's first name, etc.
0:35 Look at the squirrel and listen to the music. Intentional? So funny
It is very few -son family names in Norwegian, -sen completely dominates. Further, the switch to inherited surnames occurred in late 19th early 20th century - at least in the region where my father grew up.
I love listening to you speak, but really love to hear you pronounce Scandinavian words. You’re like a Nordic cowboy! Anyway.. my surname is Danish and originally ended in sen but was changed at the border to son. It’s like turning into a Swede 😑
Love seeing the Huskarl in the video
Love your videos sir! Was wondering whether that "hw-" in your pronunciation is a received feature or part of your native accent?
Roman Pushkov He explained that he got it from his grandparents’ conservative accent.
@@joshadams8761 Hwaet? you mean he didn't get it from Beowulf?
@@joshadams8761 Cool, thanks!
In case you haven’t already, which means I missed it, could you cover why some Scandinavian names ended with -not? (Sleipnir, Mjolnir , etc)
My surname is Anderson, and turns out it was originally a Dutch patronymic surname that sailed to the Nieuw Nederland colony in the mid 17th century. A forebear was named Joshua Andrieszen, whose father was named Andries Jochemsen.
I like Odin's raven appearing at the end. Is that Huginn or Muninn?
Always wondered this, love how you not only go into detail in Scandinavian cultures and language Dr Jackson, but you also look at the often glossed over basics.
My Danish family genealogy research shows that some parts of Denmark seemed to accept the repetitive surnames earlier than others. Even some of my female relatives began using the "sen" surname instead of "datter". I saw this in ancestors from Vejle, Skanderborg, and Ringkobing counties long before in Odense county.
It's because it took several decades to implement the name-law properly.
My surname stopped changing with my great grandfather's name being given as my grandfather's surname, and from there we've kept it as is. So I carry his name with-sen at the end, allthough I'm his great granddaughter, so obviously not a son or great grandson either.
But being a Norwegian I can add that what is most common here is the -sen ending just like in Denmark. I think for the most part that if people here have a surname that ends with-son, then it's probably more likely that they are either Swedish or of Swedish descent because it's really not very common here at all.
On patronyms: in Denmark proper and the Faroe Islands it was established by law in 1828 that every man should take on an unchanging family name. This was instructed via the pastors, but unclearly, so the effect was to get these ossified patronyms for most Danes (not so much in the Faroes) This law was not established for Iceland, although Iceland belonged to Denmark at the time, so they still have the active use of patronyms even today. In Norway, no law was introduced until a hundred years later, so a lot of Norwegians took on the names of their family farms as family names instead and had already done so, before the law was introduced. In Sweden, a law was made in 1901, and the effect largely seems to have become as in Denmark. In Denmark today, lots of people take on invented family names, so the percentage of -sen names is dropping fast.
Funnily enough, my mothers side is Danish as far back as we have records, yet it would translate to something like Rosegarden/Rosefarm, Andersen/Hansen/Petersen are indeed very common names though.
Yes, names based on places, like *Vestergård, Østergård, Abildgård* (West farm, east farm, apple farm) etc, are super common in danish.
Names based on occupation are also popular: *Schröder, Schumacher, Degn, Schmidt* (Taylor, shoemaker, clerk, smith). For some reason even native danes liked a (low)german spelling. On the top ten of danish surnames, nine are -sen names and one is *Møller* (miller)
In Sweden it was more popular to take a name based on nature: *Lindgren* (linden + branch) *Lundquist* (Grove + twig) *Blomberg* (Flower + hill)
I have an understanding of this already. My ancestor originally had the last name of Johansen, but when he moved to the US it was changed to Johnson.
Johnson is a lot easier to say as well.. I mean it's either a loss of 1 or 2 syllables, which makes it a lot easier to say.Jo-Han-Sen is always 3 Syllables, while Johnson is either John-Son or Johnsn with the last syllable gone too.
As someone named Johan, I just introduce myself as "John" whenever I'm speaking English with a non-Scandinavian. It's much easier for them to relate haha
Thank you for the explanation, it was way more detailed than my father's :). skål
It is a relatively new tradition in Norway to omit "son" or "dottir" from the last name. It was required by law in the 18th century (I think!) that the last names should not be "son" or "dottir" but taken from the place or farm where the family came from. So many last names in Norway, like mine, is linked to a physical place or farm. The tradition of using "son/dottir" didn't disappear, it was common to use it in the middle name. My grandfathers middle name, as were his brothers, was Ivarson, after his father Ivar. He was born in 1903.
My family's name was Pettersson before it was changed to Almquist. Due to their farm being "Almhult". In Sweden.
Perhaps the namelaw was implemented in both Norway & Sweden due to the union 1814-1905?
John Tangerås , I bet you're right!
Fixed surnames in Norway weren't compulsory until 1925.
Travis Woyen, 👍
-son names are particularly common in the north of England and Scotland. Do those names originate from Scandinavian settlement, a separate naming tradition, or a mixture of the two?
You beat me to the question.
Look up Danelaw.
Mixture. The Anglo-Saxons were from just south of Denmark, and they were accompanied by a smaller tribe the "Jutes." "Jutland," the peninsula that makes up most of Denmark's landmass, is where the Jutes came from. After the Anglo-Saxons (along with those Jutes and some Frisians from the modern Netherlands) settled and Christianized there was a second wave of pagan north Germanic raiding/settling. This was mostly Danes and Norwegians as the German Anglo-Saxons and Dutch Frisians had also Christianized and settled down by this time. This resulted in things like the Danelaw in northern England and the various Norse lords of the isles in Scotland.
Can we draw parallels to northern English names?
Another wrinkle is that Swedish surnames often (usually?) use double s'es and Danish surnames use a single s. E.g. my surname is Andersen while the Swedish version is Andersson. Jensen/Jönsson. Eriksen/Ericsson.
Priests very often wrote whatever the H they liked, especially in areas where accents were different from their own or even the language was another.
Ericson is more common than Ericsson, though. It's typically either Eriksson or Ericson in Swedish. And Jönsson is a typically Scanian surname, the more common Swedish version is Johansson or Jonsson.
So, someone in my family was named Bee long ago and it stuck. Am I understanding this right.
Family name Beeson but we know it to have changed and split into two families the Beeson, or beason.
@@brittakriep2938 after dna tests I know I am not French, however I get what you're saying and we do have that in our family, Beeson, beason, beson, and beeston. Are all the same family rooting. All have a common ancestor though we dont know exactly who.
@@brittakriep2938 that's actually really cool you've gotten to do that. I'm honestly impressed with the adventures.
Also very good information I'll definitely use it in my research.
In Norway we have some people use sønn so some people have Anderssønn
Patronyms and quite commonly matronyms are not just used as middle names in the Faroe Islands but also as the “surname”. So we do have people here which use patronyms/metronyms, yes.
Yes to both. I’m trying to think about an example of the second but one such escapes me, sadly but it is something I have encountered.
Just thought of someone: The Faroese literary critic Turið Sigurðardóttir used to be Turið Sigurðardóttir Joensen, but she later removed the Joensen-sen-surname “upgrading” the Sigurðardóttir to a “surname”, again putting surname in quotation mark because matronyms/patronyms are not proper surname.
Looking very handsome in this video, got some kind of glow, maybe it’s that sponsorship money or maybe something else lol But interesting video I didn’t know Norwegians also used son.
Connected to this I have always wondered why and where the name 'Erik' or 'Erikr' changed from 'Eirikr' or alternately 'Eirik' or 'Erik'. Where the extra i comes into the picture or disappears as the case may be. Yes, this is my real name but I don't know the history of the linguistic change.
I live in CO and have been looking for a good linguistics program. Guess I know where I'm find to college!
The female form Dotter/Datter was also traditional in all of scandinavia. If Erik and Sigrid were the children of Knut, their names would be Erik Knutsson and Sigrid Knutsdotter. It still happens that some people take patrilineal names.
My first through fifth great grandfathers were all named Ola.
My last name is 'Nielsen' - now the most common last name in Denmark 😅😑🤗 My mother's maidenname was Jensen (the 2nd most common). I'm just so ordinary! 😆😆
a lot of Northern german and Dutch names are also sen names
and here in north/west Germany we have "-ing" names (first name of an ancestor + "ing") which means "the family of ...", like my family's name was "Hermeling" (from Hermann) until about 100 years ago (when it was shortend for whatever reason)
Apart from cross-border exchanges, mariages, and migrations between two neighboring countries, I assume that a lot of that has to do with the fact that the southern-most part of traditional Denmark was captured by Germany (actually "Prussia") in 1864 (so "Slesvig" became "Schleswig"). Another consequence of this is that the place of the important Danish viking market place of "Hedeby" is now in "Haddeby" in Germany.
Well, it lasted ~400 years, so not bad as borders kept changing. End of the day, Slesvig had a mix population of Germans and Danes in the middle of nationalistic movements in Europe. Ended in a bad place, but luckily we learned a lot since then when it comes to protecting minorities
Britta Kriep it’s always interesting to read both sides’ explanation of the historical events and try to learn from it. Funny enough, if the Danish and Prussian governments would have followed the recommendations of the international committee in 1864, the border would have been where it is now.
Britta Kriep if you have time, watch the Danish TV show “1864”. You can find it here on CZcams or on www.dr.dk (put 1864 in the search field). Interesting to watch the political situation during that time and why the Danish Government thought a war was a solution.
My family name is Oelofse.We settled in South Africa.
well explained. my last name is Persson
What would the country or possibly countries of origin be for -ssen? As in Hanssen.
I am curious whether the -son -sen in Norse languages is somehow interconnected with Slavic-Russian ending -ič, or Celtic O' and Mac.
I'm not an expert but I think Slavic -ič, and -ski/ska, are related to English -ish and German -isch.
The -ic is just an ending that forms a denominal, meaning "of/from something", so a patronymic such as Vladimirovich literally means "(son) of Vladimir", but it can also form non-patronymics, e.g. someone from Moscow would be referred to as a "moskvich" in contemporary Russian. The root for "son" is "syn/sin" but I can't think of any slavic language that has ever used it to form a patronymic.
Not sure about the Celtic O, but Mac is indeed the root for "son" as far as I remember.
Celtic Ó means 'grandson' or 'descendant (of)', the female version being Ní; and Mac means 'son (of)', the female version being Nic (only as a woman's maiden name).
Mac- originally meant son of. Eventually it became a family name, but it was the patronymic. O' is a descendent of the old Ó/Ua/Uí forms that denoted a large family. So the UíNéill were the descendants of a mythical progenitor named Neill.
You keep forgetting about Faroese :)
My family name is Fure. I was told it came from Norway, but my great great grandfather was from Bavaria. How'd that happen, and does Fure have any meaning in the Norwegian language?
As a Norwegian i would translate Fure to furrow or ravine - depending on context. There are also several places named Fure in Norway.
Edit: I looked it up and it can also be a form of Furu - fir or pine tree.
@@zooloo73 A Norwegian by the name Lars Fure once told me that Fure meant a clearing in the forest. A place to build a farm. I forgot that information until aftr I made my comment.
@@lawrencefure2102 I haven't heard that meaning before and I could not find it in the bokmål nor nynorsk dictionaries. It could easily be a local dialect or old form no longer used.
My familiy name is an old norse form of "hearth" that is unknown to most Norwegians.
Well now i know!
It's kinda simple
Norway - Anderson (son with one s)
Sweden - Andersson (son with two ss)
Denmark - Andersen
They made a name-law in the start of the 18-hundreds in Denmark, demanding that people started using family-names in stead of patronymes.
It took most of the century to implement properly, however, since most people didn't understand this new custom and resisted it.
This is also why we can see a lot of people having patronymes as a "middle-name" during the 18-hundreds. - And a lot of inconsistency.
I've seen siblings, where some of them got patronymes, and some the father's last name... (Despite being born into the same marriage).
"Mitfuldenavn"? Det er morsomt or kvik!
@@chrisinidaho4569 - Haha, tak!
when and why did inherited names stop getting utilized? or are there places that still do it?
inherited names? what do you mean, thats the most common form of last names
@@magnusorn7313 I mean when did last names stop using the whole fathers name + son or dotter formula?
Iceland still uses patronymic/matronymic names: czcams.com/video/pL5hLTEdeJw/video.html
@@MDJ5
Denmark 1828 naming act
Norway 1923 by order of law
Sweden 1901 through the names adoption law
in the danish controlled faroese islands there is a mix of people with patronymic names and regular last names from denmark
they also sometimes use patronymic names as a middle name and then a family name as their last name (not sure though)
iceland still uses the patronymic system
you should note that in modern times and probably many times the the past as well there are exceptions, when the laws where made there where probably still rural regions that may have kept the system as they where not kept in check by the government and there are some historic cases of matronymic names, in iceland today some opt for the matronymic system and some use both their mothers and fathers name like our last president i think
we also do have some family names, some members of my family even use the family name, my grandmother goes by it after her patronymic name and i have an aunt who changed their name and opted for the family name instead of the patronymic one
in scandinavia today i have heard that more people are opting to return to the patronymic system but i havent met anyone who has, one man i know goes by this one danish system where you technically have two family names, the father will be called for example "john robertson" and then the son will be "robert johnson" and then it loops, its sort of a mix of both systems as you can tell they are from that family chain because the chain only consist of those two conjoined names but it does also follow the system
what is going in is that it like 70% a family name and 30% patronymic
in iceland i have a friend who does the same thing but there the intent is actually to follow the patronymic system but just go in a loop with it
so there it is 70% patronymic and 30% family name
ok so they made it illegal to use that naming system? why?
You could have mentioned the female form used in Iceland dottir (I have no umlaut on my keyboard sorry).
ó - dóttir .. there you go :D
@@no-diggarden ich hatte die wahl, ihm das zum geben, was er sucht oder den in dem zusammenhang korrekten buchstaben.
ich denke mit also ó statt ö :D
@@no-diggarden stimmt, er hat sicher einen Ömlaut gesucht! xD
Yes, it was also used in the other Scandinavian countries. - datter in Denmark / Norway or -dotter in Sweden.
That was swell, but you need to get out of the sun, son. ;)
Any idea where Watson comes from
Is in all likelihood of the same origin
@@wiskeeamazingdancer4964 I have found 3 different meanings for the name Watt ,Thanks
The horse had something to say in the first minute of this video. Sadly I don't speak horse, but my grandma and grandpa did.
I could stop laughing when he said huwhich and huwhy. All I thought about was that episode of Family Guy when Brian was trying to get Stewie to say it right.
No disrespect was meant. I laugh just as hard when I do it.
Our brains are funny lol
@Caner Birgül Don't care. It was a funny episode. Besides I have never heard anyone actually say it that way. It's just one of things that annoy me. Like qcoup-pon and hang-ger, and ruf (roof).
@Caner Birgül that is entirely possible but I'm from New Jersey and we get made fun of a lot for pronunciation although that seems to concentrated at the shore. One word I had trouble with was drawer. I used to say draaw. And I have trouble with a rolling r. But don't know if that's me or an American thing.
as much as being named after the farm you are all from is cool and all, i would rather my last name was not "place" as that is the translation of the name of the farm my family is from
Most names in northern England end in Son. I wonder if it's because of the Vikings invasions
Yes defenetly.
There are also 'son' names in Scotland, since there is a strong patronymic tradition there. Take Anderson for example. It is an English version of MacAndrews or even Mac Ghille Andrais. Makes it confusing to trace those names unless the family has specific knowledge of their heritage.
Most likely a Norwegian name originally
How would you say daughter of that father?
That father's daughter, you put s after the name of the father and the words for daughter in the languages are
-dóttir (icelandic/faroese)
-dotter (swedish/nynorsk)
-datter (dano-norwegian)
Maybe that explains my family name then
Those with the same Scandinavian last names in the US that end in en or on are unlikely to be related because of the tradition. Coats of arms are also likely to be wrong.
Hm, I wonder why this was recommended to me, can’t quite put my finger on it.
You're "Scandanavian Doctor, Jackson Crawford" lol
My last name is Smith but I have 75 percent Scandinavian because my mother's and father's mother's were full blooded and my grandfather on my mother's side had some and my grandpa on the other side who was supposedly mostly German which we found out Nordland Germany had lots of Scandinavian roots.
@@jamesdarwinsmithii7039 I was referencing, jokingly, how he accidentally worded his intro this time ;-)
Mr Anderson
If the son of Þhorvald is Þhorvaldsson, what is the son of Þhorvaldsson called?
Peterolen Okay, thank you.
When you add text to video, could you raise it a bit so it's readable with subtitles on? Otherwise very good video and enjoying your content.
you can somehow adjust the position of the subtitles whether youre on mobile or on desktop.
on desktop you can drag and drop as far as i remember and on mobile look in to your settings in app
@@sonnenhafen5499 On PC I know I can move the text where I want it, but looking through the settings on my phone I can't find such setting. My workaround is to pause the video, disable the subtitles, read, enable subs and press play.
@@TH-bj1pb oh i see, indeed, i guess i have remembered that incorrectly
Hi I'm Scandinavian linguist Dr. Luke Wilson
yes, and this has to do with what??