On Wed, 6 Jan 2021 17:49:14 +0000, Graeme Wall
wrote:

On 05/01/2021 22:49, Charles Ellson wrote:
On Tue, 5 Jan 2021 21:20:09 -0000, "NY" wrote:

"Tweed" wrote in message
...

It's just a cultural thing, like many Europeans have names like Magnus
Magnus*son*, and innumerable similar Slavic suffices.

Slavic? I thought it came from the Icelandic. There surnames come from the
first name of the parent.
So Magnusson is the male offspring of a chap whose first name was Magnus
something elseson. If he also had a female offspring her surname would
be
Magnusdottir. (Magnus’s daughter)

It made for an interesting telephone book....

It must make genealogy "interesting" because every generation of a family
will have a different surname, as will brothers and sisters.

In Icelandic, do *both* the sons and the daughters take the father's first
name? I have vague memories of being told that daughter's sometimes take the
mother's first name - so Magnus and Oddny (*) might have a son with a
surname Magnusson and a daughter with a surname Oddnydottir (rather than
Magnusdottir).

Do Icelandic women generally take their husband's surname after marriage or
do they normally / always keep their maiden surname?


(*) The only Icelandic person I knew was a woman with this rather unusual (I
hesitate to say Odd!) first name.

You will also find patronymics in very old Welsh and Scottish records,
usually where the names have been given in Welsh or Gaelic.


Some modern Welsh have revived that tradition, calling themselves Owen
ap Rhys rather than Owen Smith.

At least he hasn't gone the whole hog (yet) and gone back four or five
generations as some of the old records do.

Tearlach mhic Desmond mhic Percy mhic Tearlach mhic Eòsaph mhic
Uilleum.....