Icelandic Name

Icelandic Name

Icelandic names differ from most current Western family name systems by being patronymic (occasionally matronymic) in that they reflect the immediate father (or mother) of the child and not the historic family lineage.

Iceland shares a common cultural heritage with the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden and Denmark with its crown dependency the Faroe Islands. Icelanders, however, unlike other Scandinavians, have continued to use their traditional name system, which was formerly used in all of Scandinavia; it has also been re-introduced in the Faroe Islands. The Icelandic system does not use family names. A person's surname indicates the first name of the person's father (patronymic) or in some cases mother (matronymic).

Some family names exist in Iceland, mostly inherited from parents of foreign origin, while some are adopted. Examples of notable Icelanders who have an inherited family name are former prime minister Geir Haarde, football star Eiður Smári Guðjohnsen, Icelandic actress Kristbjörg Kjeld, actor Magnús Scheving, film director Baltasar Kormákur Samper, actress Anita Briem and news reporter Elín Hirst. Before 1925, it was legal to adopt new family names; one Icelander to do so was the Nobel Prize-winning author Halldór Laxness. Since 1925, one cannot adopt a family name unless one explicitly has a legal right to do so through inheritance.

First names that have not been previously used in Iceland must be approved by the Icelandic Naming Committee (Icelandic: Mannanafnanefnd) before being used. The criterion for acceptance of names is whether or not they can be easily incorporated into the Icelandic language. First, they must contain only letters found in the Icelandic alphabet and second, they must be able to be declined (that is, modified according to their grammatical case).