{"id":26054,"date":"2022-10-01T07:00:32","date_gmt":"2022-10-01T11:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=26054"},"modified":"2023-01-31T17:53:38","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T22:53:38","slug":"sons-and-dottirs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=26054","title":{"rendered":"Sons and Dottirs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Linda Lou Burton posting from Center Hotels Plaza, Reykjavik, Iceland<\/em> \u2013 It\u2019s that foggy-brain time between waking up and getting up. Icelandic names are on my agenda today, as promised. I talked about the Horse Naming Commission yesterday. Well, there is a people naming group too — the Icelandic Naming Committee<\/em> — and its duty is approving, or not, FIRST names not previously used in Iceland. Why? Protecting the Icelandic language is a primary reason; names must contain only letters found in the Icelandic alphabet. Okay, I get that. But why the emphasis on FIRST names? Icelanders operate on a first-name basis. It’s hard \"\"<\/a>for Americans to grasp that notion, even with all its own informality. Browse the Icelandic phone book and you\u2019ll find alphabetical listings by first name. So what about the last name, the surname? Iceland doesn\u2019t follow the naming conventions you\u2019ll find in much of the Western world; it uses a patronymic, and sometimes matronymic system. That mean a child\u2019s surname is made up from a father\u2019s first name with the child\u2019s gender at the end of that. Example: my father\u2019s name is Craig Burton. Had I been born in Iceland, my name would be Linda Craigsdottir, not Linda Burton. And my brothers surnames would be Craigsson. Sometimes the mother\u2019s name makes up part of the surname — perhaps if Mother wishes to end ties to Father, or if Mother chooses to make a social statement about the issue. And in 2019, the laws were broadened so a child can be registered as \u201cgender neutral\u201d by adding the suffix “bur” (child of) to either parents first name instead of \u201cson\u201d or \u201cdottir.\u201d Got all of that?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019m fully awake now, looking out my window and trying to sort this in my mind, so I googled some Icelandic names on the\u00a0Government website; here are a few government officials, listed \"\"<\/a>alphabetically by first name, including the Prime Minister, Katr\u00edn Jakobsd\u00f3ttir, pictured right.<\/p>\n