6 ms·

Depends on how you define "family name". In the most pragmatic sense, as in "what should you put in the family name field in legal contexts", then "Guðmundsdót

Depends on how you define "family name". In the most pragmatic sense, as in "what should you put in the family name field in legal contexts", then "Guðmundsdóttir" is her family name E.g. her passport will have that value under "Surname". And if she found herself in Iceland, in any paper where Björk would write down "Guðmundsdóttir", Taylor Swift would write "Swift", not "Scottsdóttir".

pavel_lishin 2y ago
We visited Iceland recently and asked a tour guide some questions about naming conventions; apparently that's fine for visitors, but to get Icelandic citizenship, you're apparently required to have an Icelandic name. (Granted, maybe there was a communication gap there; maybe it would only be required of any children we had there?)
- icepat 2y ago
  This is an old law that was changed recently. It's no longer needed that you adopt an Icelandic name to obtain citizenship.
- arnarbi 2y ago
  You used to be required to adopt an Icelandic forename - not surname. You still kept your original name (if you wanted) and it was up to you which one you used on practice. But as sibling comment says, that’s been dropped. For surnames, anyone (including Icelanders) is allowed to use a family name if they have a claim to one, which is defined as having a parent or a grandparent carrying that name as a surname. So foreigners with family names can pass those to their children if they like and skip the patronym.
amiga386 2y ago
OK, then if Taylor Swift were born in Iceland, she'd have been called Taylor Scottsdóttir, because that would be the naming tradition. And if she were a man, and her wife had children, they'd take the surname "Taylorsson" or "Taylorsdóttir". But more realisticly, if she married her current boyfriend and they moved to Iceland and followed the Icelandic tradition, their children would take the name Travisson or Travissdóttir However, if she moved to Iceland, at a time when they still used phone books, people would look in the phonebook under "T" for "Taylor", as they'd look under "B" for "Björk", as in Icelandic society the "surname" doesn't have the same importance, given it changes every generation and isn't passed on like it is in other societies.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  Even in Iceland, it's still used primarily in the same way that it's used everywhere else... disambiguation. Which "Taylor", which "Björk", since given names are reused so often there are typically are many Taylors and many Björks. That their phone book chooses to use a different name for sorting doesn't change this, and given the nature of the second name, it would hardly be more efficient to use one or the other.
  - amiga386 2y ago
    True, and even then, there are currently 7 Björk Guðmundsdóttirs according to their online phonebook... as you might expect https://en.ja.is/?q=bj%C3%B6rk%20gu%C3%B0mundsd%C3%B3ttir&people_scope=true https://en.ja.is/?q=bj%C3%B6rk%20gu%C3%B0mundsd%C3%B3ttir&pe... Obviously, there are a lot more John Smiths...
  - kridsdale3 2y ago
    At least for those two women, disambiguation is not necessary. Checking Google.com autocomplete, Bjork is returned for the substring "bjo" and Swift is returned for the substring "t". Making her the eponymous global entity for that entire letter. Her father should renaming himself Scott Taylorsdad.
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
      >At least for those two women, disambiguation is not necessary. This seems unlikely. Taylor is a popular-enough millennial name that there must be many women (and more than a few men) named that. If we all ran around using only first/given names, we would certainly discover the need for disambiguation. Even Bjork is nowhere near unique. You didn't think they were the only people to have those names, did you? Disambiguation isn't about whether Google returns the most popular search for a given name, it's about what you need when you're not looking for the most popular target. This is plainly obvious, and a little disturbing that you could find cause to argue about it. The redditification of HN marches onward inevitably.
    - munch117 2y ago
weinzierl 2y ago
Family Name has a common definition. It is a type of surname passed down through generations. So Taylor Swift has a family name, Björk has not. That is also why passports have a surname field but not a family name field. Not everyone has a surname but conventions to deal with this vary. Similarly, passports use the terminology given name because not everyone has been christened and not everyone has a first name - for example I don't.
- kgwgk 2y ago
  > not everyone has a first name - for example I don't. > E-Mail is first name at my domain.
  - weinzierl 2y ago
    Good catch! Fixed it, thanks.
    - kgwgk 2y ago
      Or you could have "fixed" the comment. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/first-name https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/first-na... the name that was given to you when you were born and that comes before your family name
      - weinzierl 2y ago
        I have a set of multiple given names, each of them given by a godfather. In our tradition and law they are equal because treating one of them specially is insulting to the godfathers (which you caught me guilty of). If given name or surname comes first is regional. Where I come from (Bavaria) traditionally the surname comes first, so even by that metric I wouldn't have a first name. Source: Die Reihenfolge der Vornamen stellt keine Rangfolge dar. Nach höchstrichterlicher Rechtsprechung (BGH, Beschluss vom 15. April 1959 – IV ZB 286/58) steht es in Deutschland dem Namensträger frei, zwischen seinen standesamtlich eingetragenen Namen zu wählen. [..] Die in der Geburtsurkunde eingetragenen Vornamen dürfen von den Namensträgern im privaten Rechts- und Geschäftsverkehr nach Belieben genutzt werden und sind gleichberechtigt. https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorname_(Deutschland) https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorname_(Deutschland)
cyberax 2y ago
Not really. It's a patronymic. Some Slavic countries also use them, in addition to family names. > E.g. her passport will have that value under "Surname". Icelandic passports don't have a separate field for "Surname": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_passport#/media/File:Icelandic_Passport_(2019)_-_Biodata_page.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_passport#/media/File...
- kgwgk 2y ago
  > Icelandic passports don't have a separate field for "Surname" I may be missing your point but there is a "Surname" field in that photo, just above "Given names".
  - taejo 2y ago
    Moreover, in a later picture on the page you can see an example showing a -dóttir name in that field (I had wondered if perhaps it was only used for people who happened to have a "real" surname as opposed to a patronymic, e.g. foreign-born citizens) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_passport#/media/File%3AISLpassportdatapage.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_passport#/media/Fi...
    - cyberax 2y ago
      Facepalm. I don't know how I missed that.

pavel_lishin 2y ago

We visited Iceland recently and asked a tour guide some questions about naming conventions; apparently that's fine for visitors, but to get Icelandic citizenship, you're apparently required to have an Icelandic name. (Granted, maybe there was a communication gap there; maybe it would only be required of any children we had there?)

icepat 2y ago
This is an old law that was changed recently. It's no longer needed that you adopt an Icelandic name to obtain citizenship.
arnarbi 2y ago
You used to be required to adopt an Icelandic forename - not surname. You still kept your original name (if you wanted) and it was up to you which one you used on practice. But as sibling comment says, that’s been dropped. For surnames, anyone (including Icelanders) is allowed to use a family name if they have a claim to one, which is defined as having a parent or a grandparent carrying that name as a surname. So foreigners with family names can pass those to their children if they like and skip the patronym.

amiga386 2y ago

OK, then if Taylor Swift were born in Iceland, she'd have been called Taylor Scottsdóttir, because that would be the naming tradition. And if she were a man, and her wife had children, they'd take the surname "Taylorsson" or "Taylorsdóttir". But more realisticly, if she married her current boyfriend and they moved to Iceland and followed the Icelandic tradition, their children would take the name Travisson or Travissdóttir However, if she moved to Iceland, at a time when they still used phone books, people would look in the phonebook under "T" for "Taylor", as they'd look under "B" for "Björk", as in Icelandic society the "surname" doesn't have the same importance, given it changes every generation and isn't passed on like it is in other societies.

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
Even in Iceland, it's still used primarily in the same way that it's used everywhere else... disambiguation. Which "Taylor", which "Björk", since given names are reused so often there are typically are many Taylors and many Björks. That their phone book chooses to use a different name for sorting doesn't change this, and given the nature of the second name, it would hardly be more efficient to use one or the other.
- amiga386 2y ago
  True, and even then, there are currently 7 Björk Guðmundsdóttirs according to their online phonebook... as you might expect https://en.ja.is/?q=bj%C3%B6rk%20gu%C3%B0mundsd%C3%B3ttir&people_scope=true https://en.ja.is/?q=bj%C3%B6rk%20gu%C3%B0mundsd%C3%B3ttir&pe... Obviously, there are a lot more John Smiths...
- kridsdale3 2y ago
  At least for those two women, disambiguation is not necessary. Checking Google.com autocomplete, Bjork is returned for the substring "bjo" and Swift is returned for the substring "t". Making her the eponymous global entity for that entire letter. Her father should renaming himself Scott Taylorsdad.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
    >At least for those two women, disambiguation is not necessary. This seems unlikely. Taylor is a popular-enough millennial name that there must be many women (and more than a few men) named that. If we all ran around using only first/given names, we would certainly discover the need for disambiguation. Even Bjork is nowhere near unique. You didn't think they were the only people to have those names, did you? Disambiguation isn't about whether Google returns the most popular search for a given name, it's about what you need when you're not looking for the most popular target. This is plainly obvious, and a little disturbing that you could find cause to argue about it. The redditification of HN marches onward inevitably.
  - munch117 2y ago

weinzierl 2y ago

Family Name has a common definition. It is a type of surname passed down through generations. So Taylor Swift has a family name, Björk has not. That is also why passports have a surname field but not a family name field. Not everyone has a surname but conventions to deal with this vary. Similarly, passports use the terminology given name because not everyone has been christened and not everyone has a first name - for example I don't.

kgwgk 2y ago
> not everyone has a first name - for example I don't. > E-Mail is first name at my domain.
- weinzierl 2y ago
  Good catch! Fixed it, thanks.
  - kgwgk 2y ago
    Or you could have "fixed" the comment. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/first-name https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/first-na... the name that was given to you when you were born and that comes before your family name
    - weinzierl 2y ago
      I have a set of multiple given names, each of them given by a godfather. In our tradition and law they are equal because treating one of them specially is insulting to the godfathers (which you caught me guilty of). If given name or surname comes first is regional. Where I come from (Bavaria) traditionally the surname comes first, so even by that metric I wouldn't have a first name. Source: Die Reihenfolge der Vornamen stellt keine Rangfolge dar. Nach höchstrichterlicher Rechtsprechung (BGH, Beschluss vom 15. April 1959 – IV ZB 286/58) steht es in Deutschland dem Namensträger frei, zwischen seinen standesamtlich eingetragenen Namen zu wählen. [..] Die in der Geburtsurkunde eingetragenen Vornamen dürfen von den Namensträgern im privaten Rechts- und Geschäftsverkehr nach Belieben genutzt werden und sind gleichberechtigt. https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorname_(Deutschland) https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorname_(Deutschland)

cyberax 2y ago

Not really. It's a patronymic. Some Slavic countries also use them, in addition to family names. > E.g. her passport will have that value under "Surname". Icelandic passports don't have a separate field for "Surname": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_passport#/media/File:Icelandic_Passport_(2019)_-_Biodata_page.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_passport#/media/File...

kgwgk 2y ago
> Icelandic passports don't have a separate field for "Surname" I may be missing your point but there is a "Surname" field in that photo, just above "Given names".
- taejo 2y ago
  Moreover, in a later picture on the page you can see an example showing a -dóttir name in that field (I had wondered if perhaps it was only used for people who happened to have a "real" surname as opposed to a patronymic, e.g. foreign-born citizens) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_passport#/media/File%3AISLpassportdatapage.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_passport#/media/Fi...
  - cyberax 2y ago
    Facepalm. I don't know how I missed that.