# Icelandic family names ending in "dottir" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 22, 2006, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/icelandic-family-names-ending-in-dottir/377460 "2006-10-22T17:32:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2015, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/icelandic-family-names-ending-in-dottir/377460/41 "2015-11-12T05:28:06Z")
Heard the same thing about Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. A fellow surnamed MacLean was explaining how there were so many Don MacLean’s that one fellow was forever called Yankee Don MacLean after visiting Boston once early in his life. I worked with a fellow from India, who appeared to have a normal two-part name. When he received his Canadian citizenship, he changed his surname before the paperwork was done. He explained that the area he came from, everyone had one name. He’d been using his village name as his surname for simplicity since when he moved to another part of India. Now that he was permanently officially settling in a new country, he decided to instead take his father’s name as his surname. Another point, made in numerous movies, books, and news reports about the middle east, is the fluidity of names in Arabic countries. Some names appear to be more like nicknames than anything permanent. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2015, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/icelandic-family-names-ending-in-dottir/377460/42 "2015-11-12T06:17:23Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Yehoshua bar Yahweh? ‘Isa ibn Maryam. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2015, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/icelandic-family-names-ending-in-dottir/377460/43 "2015-11-12T16:01:06Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > In Iceland, he’d be under John. A friend of mine lived in Iceland for a time, and he was in the phone book under his first name. > > As mentioned above, the “surnames” are not really used in Iceland in everyday life. Talking to Einar Jonsson, you call him “Einar”, not “Mr Jonsson”. “Jonsson” is more like a descriptor, a bit more information about Einar. > > That said, there are a few family names in Iceland. As I recall, families that had adopted a surname before a certain date were allowed to keep them. So I suppose when you’re in a situation where there might be more than one Einar, that’s when the “Jonsson” comes into play. And I imagine it’s more common in bigger cities than in rural areas; asking someone in Reykjavik whether they know Einar would almost certainly require qualification as to which Einar, while in a small rural town, that would be all you’d need to ask. ---
**Author:** ![tonyfop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/85f322/32.png) [@tonyfop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tonyfop)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2015, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/icelandic-family-names-ending-in-dottir/377460/44 "2015-11-12T16:34:15Z")
I was stationed in Iceland in the early 90’s, and their naming conventions definitely reflect their degree of gender equality. Some of the women I talked to were appalled by American naming conventions, especially the (now pretty much obsolete)convention of my wife calling herself “Mrs. TonyFop”, or introducing a couple as “Mr. and Mrs. TonyFop”. To them, it was the equivalent of becoming the husband’s possession, which none of them could imagine. This didn’t stop them from wanting to marry Americans, as that was the easiest way off that rock. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2015, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/icelandic-family-names-ending-in-dottir/377460/45 "2015-11-12T18:51:50Z")
So in the episode of the West Wing where Bartlet was welcoming the male ambassador with a last name of something-dottir, that was a boo boo? ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2015, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/icelandic-family-names-ending-in-dottir/377460/46 "2015-11-12T19:14:28Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > Problem was there are only so many names to go around so there were an awful lot of repeats. To help with this, the listing would also include the person’s job after Same situation in Wales, which customarily used patronymics until the assimilation under the Tudors, and a surname system came in, but only a limited number of surnames was adopted. So it was, and for all I know still is, customary, at least in small towns and villages to distinguish Jones-the-Butcher from Jones-the-Undertaker, or sometimes it’s even more informal (hence the character Dai Bread in Under Milk Wood). ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/icelandic-family-names-ending-in-dottir/377460/47 "2015-11-13T00:25:51Z")
> [@tonyfop](#): > > I was stationed in Iceland in the early 90’s, and their naming conventions definitely reflect their degree of gender equality. Some of the women I talked to were appalled by American naming conventions, especially the (now pretty much obsolete)convention of my wife calling herself “Mrs. TonyFop”, or introducing a couple as “Mr. and Mrs. TonyFop”. To them, it was the equivalent of becoming the husband’s possession, which none of them could imagine. This didn’t stop them from wanting to marry Americans, as that was the easiest way off that rock. Icelanders have the right of settlement throughout the EU, and I’m pretty sure that was the case back in the early 1990s. You can leave the rock any time. But they have a surprisingly low desire to, at least permanently. When I was there, in the mid-90s, virtually the entire population between the ages of 21 and 25 seemed to be abroad, doing postgraduate degrees, because the Icelandic government paid generously for this. But, after several years in the fleshpots of Copenhagen or Paris or New York, they virtually all came back to the tumbleweed of Reykjavik. I guess they missed all the drunken sex with their second cousins. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/icelandic-family-names-ending-in-dottir/377460.md?page=2)