4 ms·

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, an

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
    That says more about how Google has been personalised to you than about Icelandic phonebooks. By the way, you are misspelling the name. The dots are not decoration, it's a different letter. Edit: But I guess you know that, and o is just easier to type.
    - mr_toad 2y ago
      It’s not a different letter, it’s the same letter with a diacritic. It might be incorrect when writing in Icelandic but in English it’s no more incorrect than using cafe instead of café.
      - Symbiote 2y ago
        In that case, the tail on the J is just a decoration of an I, and we can write Iack Iones.
      - thaumasiotes 2y ago
        munch117 is right; it's a different letter. Compare French é and è, different vowels with different spellings, to pinyin é and è, identical vowels with different diacritically-marked tones. The French vowels don't have diacritics any more than i and j do. That's a graphemic definition of "letter". There is an alternative, collation order, but in Icelandic that will also tell you that o and ö are two different letters, and ö sorts after þ while o sorts before it.
thaumasiotes 2y ago
> their children would take the name Travisson or Travissdóttir Why is it Travissdottir but not Travissson?
- ayewo 2y ago
  dottir = female child (daughter) son = male child
  - tmtvl 2y ago
    thaumasiotes is asking about the number of 's'-es in the surname.
- amiga386 2y ago
  I'm not an expert in Icelandic orthography, but the general case is "<name>'s son/daughter", e.g. "son of Fredrik" -> Fredriksson and for <name> ending in "s", I knew "son of Magnús" -> Magnússon. But I should've checked, because I've looked it up now, and "daughter of Magnús" should be Magnúsdóttir. So we'd get Travisson / Travisdóttir.

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
  That says more about how Google has been personalised to you than about Icelandic phonebooks. By the way, you are misspelling the name. The dots are not decoration, it's a different letter. Edit: But I guess you know that, and o is just easier to type.
  - mr_toad 2y ago
    It’s not a different letter, it’s the same letter with a diacritic. It might be incorrect when writing in Icelandic but in English it’s no more incorrect than using cafe instead of café.
    - Symbiote 2y ago
      In that case, the tail on the J is just a decoration of an I, and we can write Iack Iones.
    - thaumasiotes 2y ago
      munch117 is right; it's a different letter. Compare French é and è, different vowels with different spellings, to pinyin é and è, identical vowels with different diacritically-marked tones. The French vowels don't have diacritics any more than i and j do. That's a graphemic definition of "letter". There is an alternative, collation order, but in Icelandic that will also tell you that o and ö are two different letters, and ö sorts after þ while o sorts before it.

thaumasiotes 2y ago

> their children would take the name Travisson or Travissdóttir Why is it Travissdottir but not Travissson?

ayewo 2y ago
dottir = female child (daughter) son = male child
- tmtvl 2y ago
  thaumasiotes is asking about the number of 's'-es in the surname.
amiga386 2y ago
I'm not an expert in Icelandic orthography, but the general case is "<name>'s son/daughter", e.g. "son of Fredrik" -> Fredriksson and for <name> ending in "s", I knew "son of Magnús" -> Magnússon. But I should've checked, because I've looked it up now, and "daughter of Magnús" should be Magnúsdóttir. So we'd get Travisson / Travisdóttir.