7 ms·

My surename is Svensson, literally "Sven's son". But patronymic surnames aren't used in Sweden/Norway anymore, so at some point we just got stuck with whatever

My surename is Svensson, literally "Sven's son". But patronymic surnames aren't used in Sweden/Norway anymore, so at some point we just got stuck with whatever father was the last in line, a bit weird. Maybe I should try to figure out which Sven it was. I guess the tradition of it being the man's name passed on means that's why there is no common surnames with *dottir as it is with *son? (Not sure what the english version for a daughter is). Had some Icelandic friends in school (which still has patronymic names, moved here after they were born), and it was for them somewhat problematic at times that the siblings had different surnames (Björnsdottir and Björnsson), as people don't assume they're family, and especially not that the parents both had different surnames again. Like school pickup with a teacher not knowing the situation.

SiVal 2y ago
The English form of daughter was also -dottir, but it was not common.
matsemann 2y ago
When thinking about names: in Norway it's quite common to take both parents' names now. So I'm MKS (initials), where Mats is my first name, K is my middle name being mother's surname, and S my dad's surname. I think it's great to have a connection to both families, and that my mother and dad combines instead of one having to "give up" some of their identity But what happens next generation? When a partner named ABC with two surnames should be combined with my name. Should a kid then be named DBCKS? And then it doubles every generation? Or should both parents pick one and pass on? And then which one? The father line as always?
- adrian_b 2y ago
  If everyone had two family names, one from mother and one from father, then the two names of child would be chosen one from the two names of the mother and one from the two names of the father. The choice could be random or by preference. This would match the way how chromosomes are passed from the parents. Neglecting the crossover (whose effect is only that the sequence pairs between which a random choice is made are smaller than the chromosomes), for each pair of chromosomes one is taken from the mother and one from the father. The choice of which of the two chromosomes of the mother and of which of the two chromosomes of the mother are taken, is random. I believe that this would be a better system for naming people. A random choice of which family name to take from each parent might be preferable, to avoid the reduction in number of the possible family names, if some would be preferred much more often than others.
  - jhrmnn 2y ago
    And so we could follow the sex chromosome and mitochondrial DNA convention—you’d inherit the grandma’s surname from your mother and the grandpa’s surname from your father.
    - adrian_b 2y ago
      This is indeed a possible variant of the system. This variant could lead to a split of the set of existing family names into two disjoint subsets, one that is passed through females and one that is passed through males. I do not think that this split could create problems, unless at the date when the system would be introduced there would happen to be a serious imbalance between the number of family names carried by females and the number of family names carried by males, which might be then preserved by the system.
  - hammock 2y ago
    Interesting thought , tying to chromosomal inheritance. Since one of the chief uses of surnames historically was to track family (financial) inheritance
  - tadfisher 2y ago
    Are we considering mitochondrial DNA? Because that is always passed down from the mother's line, so maybe we should always use the mother's maiden name as the "last" name to preserve this trait.
  - abecedarius 2y ago
    There was a 70s science fiction future where customarily both parents adopted a new last name when they married. Seemed the obvious sensible policy for women's lib without a 2^N name-length scaling with the generations. I only know one person who's done that. In some ways there's been less future shock than we expected.
    - kelnos 2y ago
      I know a couple who combined half each of their original surnames to create a new surname. I thought it was a cool idea, but of course won't work for everyone's names. Their "invented" name turned out to be a fairly reasonable surname that is probably in not-uncommon use in general, so that worked well for them. I feel like that could kinda work for my wife's name and my name, but the possible new combinations still sound a little off to me. (We both kept our original surnames.)
- tadfisher 2y ago
  We did this for our children as a US couple, and didn't even make the connection to Scandanavian practices (my wife's heritage, coincidentally). We likened it to the Spanish practice of having two surnames, without the confusion of having four names (due to Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names [0]). [0] "People have exactly N names, for any value of N." --https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...
- KPGv2 2y ago
  > But what happens next generation? When a partner named ABC with two surnames should be combined with my name Look to Hispanic countries. They've been dealing with this for a very long time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_naming_customs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_naming_customs Generally, if a parent has two surnames, the child will take the first of them, so you normally will have two surnames, the first or only from your father, and the first or only from your mother. (Note that this algorithm does eliminate matrilineal names, because a child will effectively be receiving their two surnames from their grandfathers. From what I understand, if the genetic lineage is particularly elite, you might keep more. My wife grew up in Latin America among the Hispanic elite, and apparently some of her friends had more than two surnames because their bloodlines were extremely blue and they wanted to preserve reference to the lineage. This is a bit like how Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's kids have the surname Mountbatten-Windsor. The former is a cadet branch of the German House of Hesse, and the latter is a rebranding of the extremely German Haus Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha (and of course right there is a triple-barrel name, Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha.
  - Fargren 2y ago
    Yeah. I had to get a second last name when I was granted Spanish citizenship, which leads to my full name not matching my Argentinian ID. This generates (small) problems when flying between Spain and Argentina. Also partially due to my full now being too long to print on a boarding pass.
    - KPGv2 2y ago
      I love paperwork, so I always handle passport applications and stuff for us, and whenever I have to fill out my wife's stuff, there's that part about other last names, and I get super paranoid trying to remember which ones she's officially used (she doesn't even remember, or even have records sometimes due to the nature of immigrating), because between Latin America and the US pre- and post-citizenship plus getting married, it's kind of a nightmare to remember when there was a de something, an y something, or just one surname, or two surnames. And then her parents are from another country with different surname rules, throwing a crazy wrench in things when she has to deal with her other citizenship documents, which adhere to that other country's rules.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  I wonder if we can invent a new convention, of compacting last names. So, if John Richards and Mary Jones have a child, they can give it the last name… Jords. Or Richnes. It only really needs to go out for four or so generations anyway, at which point the folks who have a really strong attachment to the name will be dead. Plus the middle names provides a slot to put your family tree’s most famous name anyway.
  - javawizard 2y ago
    This reminds me of Zach Weinersmith[0], of SMBC fame. He was originally Zach Weiner, and he married Kelly Smith[1] and they concatenated both their names together and adopted that as their last name. There's something I love about that. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zach_Weinersmith https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zach_Weinersmith [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Weinersmith https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Weinersmith
    - bjt 2y ago
      Former LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa did the same. (He was born Villar. Wife was born Raigosa.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Villaraigosa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Villaraigosa
      - wink 2y ago
        Depends on the jurisdiction, for example Germany is pretty strict. If A marries B, then either both keep their names, both will be A or both will be B or one or both will be A-B or B-A. No other outcomes are possible, and if one of them was B-C before then the kids can't be A-B-C.
  - mikepurvis 2y ago
    I know some couples who have gone this route— both taking on a different name at marriage, either a combination of their names or a new one invented from whole cloth. It's definitely a workable option in terms of equalizing the "loss of identity" piece and ensuring that both parties are as all-in on the newly-created family unit. That said, it does also feel a bit more chaotic and potentially subject to widespread adoption of surnames that are trendy in popular culture.
- nilstycho 2y ago
  I like the idea of union names [1]. If you're AC and your partner is BD, then on marriage you choose a new name X. You become AXC and your partner BXD. Your child is EX. Then each child has equal connection to both parents. The cost is that you lose the deep history of names, but that history only existed for a single lineage anyway, so it's not as important as it seemed. (1) https://nothingismere.com/2013/11/12/solve-surnames-with-union-names/ https://nothingismere.com/2013/11/12/solve-surnames-with-uni...
- b112 2y ago
  Women taking men's names has another side to it. When you think of it, women live forever, men die. 4B or whatever years ago, life arose. The cells which divided then, are the same cells as now. Women come from an egg, which divided over and over, cells specializing, including dividing and specializing as her eggs/ova which she is born with. The end result is that those cells are a continuous line, billions of years old. Men contribute sperm, genetic material, but no living cell. In a sense, women are immortal. Men die. So, maybe the name change is to honour those soon dead? (Yes, I know, weird take on it. It's Monday, I'm allowed.)
  - jraph 2y ago
    I don't think there's such a difference between the two kinds of gametes. Things are quite symmetrical. - Sperm is as alive as ova: not alive. What is alive is the combination of the two, after some development. - Both gametes contribute genetic material the same way. - Their respective lines are as continuous. > So, maybe the name change is to honour those soon dead? Of course, the name change has sociological / political reasons. It cannot have such biological roots since the policies around names were there way before we discovered this stuff. I'm afraid the reasons why we keep the male name in many places are simpler and way less poetic.
    - b112 2y ago
      I don't think there's such a difference between the two kinds of gametes One's a full cell with mitochondria, cell wall, and so on. The other just delivers genetic information. There's no symmetry. For example, all your mitochondria and its dna come from the female line. None from the male.
      - jraph 2y ago
        Yes, of course, there is a asymmetry. The shape and the material, of course. Another example is that while sperm is constantly produced, ova are all there since birth. But this part: > The cells which divided then, are the same cells as now Seems quite wrong. Ova of one woman obviously contains part her DNA, not her mother's unchanged. Now, I didn't know about the mitochondria part, interesting, thanks for teaching me!
- fy20 2y ago
  Lithuania has interesting rules about the surname, as it is gendered, and the suffix changes when the woman is married. Typically the father's surname is used, and the suffix is changed to match the rules. For sons it's easy, as the surname doesn't change, it just ends in a masculine ending. Most commonly -as, but less common are -is, -ys or -ius. For daughters, the masculine ending is replaced with a feminine ending such as -aitė, -ytė, -utė, or -ūtė. I'm not aware of cases where the father and son have different endings, but technically you could. However where it gets interesting is marriage. Typically married women take the husband's surname, but they change the ending to -ienė to indicate they are married. So a family with a daughter would result in everyone having a different surname, for example: Father: Tomas Žukauskas Mother: Eglė Žukauskienė Daughter: Gabija Žukauskaitė Divorced women typically take their father's surname, but use the married -ienė ending as it appears more sophisticated. Well known people may keep their father's surname even when married, but change the ending. Gendered suffixes are used for first names too (typically Lithuanian's only have two names), but they don't change for married/unmarried. For example Paulius for a man and Paulina for a woman. Lithuanian's love diminutives though, so a parent may refer to their children as Pauliukas (the son) or Paulytė (the daughter). And to make things even more fun, the suffix of names changes depending on gramative case. In the media foreign names are usually converted to their Lithuanian counterpart, for example Donaldas Trumpas.
  - skirmish 2y ago
    > I'm not aware of cases where the father and son have different endings, but technically you could I am Lithuanian, and I never heard of that happen. This [1] also concurs: "Sons inherit their father's surname, with no changes." [1] https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Lithuania_Naming_Customs https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Lithuania_Naming_Custom...
- hilux 2y ago
  > in Norway it's quite common to take both parents' names now. What's going on in the name "Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen"?
  - Tor3 2y ago
    That seems to be "Sven" - first name, "Magnus" - middle name, "Øen Carlsen", a combination of two last names, "Øen" from his mother and "Carlsen" from his father.
- Toutouxc 2y ago
  Adding to the list of weird traditions, I believe in Hungary the traditional way (nowadays not so popular?) was for the married woman to give up her ENTIRE identity (name AND surname), and just adopt the husband's full name with some suffix. Now that's insane.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
vitus 2y ago
> it was for them somewhat problematic at times that the siblings had different surnames (Björnsdottir and Björnsson), as people don't assume they're family, and especially not that the parents both had different surnames again. I've heard similar things with certain eastern European countries (Bulgarian has different forms for males vs females: Ivanov vs Ivanova), and also with various Indian populations where the child's last name is just the father's first name. Meanwhile I have the more mundane option where my father's first name is just my middle name.
colechristensen 2y ago
Christen's son emigrated to America several generations ago so that's when the name stuck for me.
cafeinux 2y ago
Are pat/matronymic surnames still used in the Feroe Isles? As I specifically know at least one dóttir, namely Eivør Pálsdóttir (which I love listening to, especially when she sings in Faroese).
- erk__ 2y ago
  The only source I could find on this in a Danish journal says that between 1992 and 2006 9% of kids got pat/matronymic surnames, so they are probably still used to some degree. Source: https://tidsskrift.dk/sin/article/download/17070/15768/ https://tidsskrift.dk/sin/article/download/17070/15768/
vidarh 2y ago
I know from genealogy when the patronymics "froze" in my ancestry, and also has a combination of farm names and patronymic surnames, and it's quite interesting to see how seemingly random the traditions were. (Incidentally, one of my great-great grandfathers was Swedish and the last one in that branch to take his fathers name + son. All of his children kept his last name; my own last name comes from a farm in Norway)
Netcob 2y ago
Here in Germany, you often come across surnames that end in "-ski", which I assume come from Poland. That is also an example of getting "stuck" with a specific version of a name: in Poland, that ending would indicate that the person is male, while "-ska" would be female, and there's even one when referring to the family that shares that name: "-scy". So whenever I meet a woman with a "-ski"-name, I wonder how many generations ago that name got stuck with just the male form.
arnsholt 2y ago
I don't know how it worked in Sweden, but in Norway I know that one of the most common conventions was for the surname to be the farm where you were born (so my great grandfather had a different surname from his younger siblings, because the family moved). But when farmers started moving into the cities, these names were looked down on so many country people took patronymics when they moved to the cities to obscure their background.
internet_points 2y ago
Real patronymics were outlawed in 1923 in Norway (earlier in Denmark). Before that, naming tradition was that the given name (Erik) was the most important, and you'd add a place/farm name (Horsebay) and/or patronymic (Sigurdsson) and/or nickname (The Foot) if you needed to disambiguate. Given and patronymic were fixed, while farm names and nicknames could change over time. This works well in a local community, but made it hard for the central government to collect taxes and conscript expendables^Winfantrymen. ==See also== * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oeconym https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oeconym * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_modernism#Standardized_legal_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_modernism#Standardized_le... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_variable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_variable * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characteristica_universalis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characteristica_universalis

SiVal 2y ago

The English form of daughter was also -dottir, but it was not common.

matsemann 2y ago

When thinking about names: in Norway it's quite common to take both parents' names now. So I'm MKS (initials), where Mats is my first name, K is my middle name being mother's surname, and S my dad's surname. I think it's great to have a connection to both families, and that my mother and dad combines instead of one having to "give up" some of their identity But what happens next generation? When a partner named ABC with two surnames should be combined with my name. Should a kid then be named DBCKS? And then it doubles every generation? Or should both parents pick one and pass on? And then which one? The father line as always?

adrian_b 2y ago
If everyone had two family names, one from mother and one from father, then the two names of child would be chosen one from the two names of the mother and one from the two names of the father. The choice could be random or by preference. This would match the way how chromosomes are passed from the parents. Neglecting the crossover (whose effect is only that the sequence pairs between which a random choice is made are smaller than the chromosomes), for each pair of chromosomes one is taken from the mother and one from the father. The choice of which of the two chromosomes of the mother and of which of the two chromosomes of the mother are taken, is random. I believe that this would be a better system for naming people. A random choice of which family name to take from each parent might be preferable, to avoid the reduction in number of the possible family names, if some would be preferred much more often than others.
- jhrmnn 2y ago
  And so we could follow the sex chromosome and mitochondrial DNA convention—you’d inherit the grandma’s surname from your mother and the grandpa’s surname from your father.
  - adrian_b 2y ago
    This is indeed a possible variant of the system. This variant could lead to a split of the set of existing family names into two disjoint subsets, one that is passed through females and one that is passed through males. I do not think that this split could create problems, unless at the date when the system would be introduced there would happen to be a serious imbalance between the number of family names carried by females and the number of family names carried by males, which might be then preserved by the system.
- hammock 2y ago
  Interesting thought , tying to chromosomal inheritance. Since one of the chief uses of surnames historically was to track family (financial) inheritance
- tadfisher 2y ago
  Are we considering mitochondrial DNA? Because that is always passed down from the mother's line, so maybe we should always use the mother's maiden name as the "last" name to preserve this trait.
- abecedarius 2y ago
  There was a 70s science fiction future where customarily both parents adopted a new last name when they married. Seemed the obvious sensible policy for women's lib without a 2^N name-length scaling with the generations. I only know one person who's done that. In some ways there's been less future shock than we expected.
  - kelnos 2y ago
    I know a couple who combined half each of their original surnames to create a new surname. I thought it was a cool idea, but of course won't work for everyone's names. Their "invented" name turned out to be a fairly reasonable surname that is probably in not-uncommon use in general, so that worked well for them. I feel like that could kinda work for my wife's name and my name, but the possible new combinations still sound a little off to me. (We both kept our original surnames.)
tadfisher 2y ago
We did this for our children as a US couple, and didn't even make the connection to Scandanavian practices (my wife's heritage, coincidentally). We likened it to the Spanish practice of having two surnames, without the confusion of having four names (due to Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names [0]). [0] "People have exactly N names, for any value of N." --https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...
KPGv2 2y ago
> But what happens next generation? When a partner named ABC with two surnames should be combined with my name Look to Hispanic countries. They've been dealing with this for a very long time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_naming_customs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_naming_customs Generally, if a parent has two surnames, the child will take the first of them, so you normally will have two surnames, the first or only from your father, and the first or only from your mother. (Note that this algorithm does eliminate matrilineal names, because a child will effectively be receiving their two surnames from their grandfathers. From what I understand, if the genetic lineage is particularly elite, you might keep more. My wife grew up in Latin America among the Hispanic elite, and apparently some of her friends had more than two surnames because their bloodlines were extremely blue and they wanted to preserve reference to the lineage. This is a bit like how Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's kids have the surname Mountbatten-Windsor. The former is a cadet branch of the German House of Hesse, and the latter is a rebranding of the extremely German Haus Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha (and of course right there is a triple-barrel name, Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha.
- Fargren 2y ago
  Yeah. I had to get a second last name when I was granted Spanish citizenship, which leads to my full name not matching my Argentinian ID. This generates (small) problems when flying between Spain and Argentina. Also partially due to my full now being too long to print on a boarding pass.
  - KPGv2 2y ago
    I love paperwork, so I always handle passport applications and stuff for us, and whenever I have to fill out my wife's stuff, there's that part about other last names, and I get super paranoid trying to remember which ones she's officially used (she doesn't even remember, or even have records sometimes due to the nature of immigrating), because between Latin America and the US pre- and post-citizenship plus getting married, it's kind of a nightmare to remember when there was a de something, an y something, or just one surname, or two surnames. And then her parents are from another country with different surname rules, throwing a crazy wrench in things when she has to deal with her other citizenship documents, which adhere to that other country's rules.
bee_rider 2y ago
I wonder if we can invent a new convention, of compacting last names. So, if John Richards and Mary Jones have a child, they can give it the last name… Jords. Or Richnes. It only really needs to go out for four or so generations anyway, at which point the folks who have a really strong attachment to the name will be dead. Plus the middle names provides a slot to put your family tree’s most famous name anyway.
- javawizard 2y ago
  This reminds me of Zach Weinersmith[0], of SMBC fame. He was originally Zach Weiner, and he married Kelly Smith[1] and they concatenated both their names together and adopted that as their last name. There's something I love about that. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zach_Weinersmith https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zach_Weinersmith [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Weinersmith https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Weinersmith
  - bjt 2y ago
    Former LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa did the same. (He was born Villar. Wife was born Raigosa.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Villaraigosa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Villaraigosa
    - wink 2y ago
      Depends on the jurisdiction, for example Germany is pretty strict. If A marries B, then either both keep their names, both will be A or both will be B or one or both will be A-B or B-A. No other outcomes are possible, and if one of them was B-C before then the kids can't be A-B-C.
- mikepurvis 2y ago
  I know some couples who have gone this route— both taking on a different name at marriage, either a combination of their names or a new one invented from whole cloth. It's definitely a workable option in terms of equalizing the "loss of identity" piece and ensuring that both parties are as all-in on the newly-created family unit. That said, it does also feel a bit more chaotic and potentially subject to widespread adoption of surnames that are trendy in popular culture.
nilstycho 2y ago
I like the idea of union names [1]. If you're AC and your partner is BD, then on marriage you choose a new name X. You become AXC and your partner BXD. Your child is EX. Then each child has equal connection to both parents. The cost is that you lose the deep history of names, but that history only existed for a single lineage anyway, so it's not as important as it seemed. (1) https://nothingismere.com/2013/11/12/solve-surnames-with-union-names/ https://nothingismere.com/2013/11/12/solve-surnames-with-uni...
b112 2y ago
Women taking men's names has another side to it. When you think of it, women live forever, men die. 4B or whatever years ago, life arose. The cells which divided then, are the same cells as now. Women come from an egg, which divided over and over, cells specializing, including dividing and specializing as her eggs/ova which she is born with. The end result is that those cells are a continuous line, billions of years old. Men contribute sperm, genetic material, but no living cell. In a sense, women are immortal. Men die. So, maybe the name change is to honour those soon dead? (Yes, I know, weird take on it. It's Monday, I'm allowed.)
- jraph 2y ago
  I don't think there's such a difference between the two kinds of gametes. Things are quite symmetrical. - Sperm is as alive as ova: not alive. What is alive is the combination of the two, after some development. - Both gametes contribute genetic material the same way. - Their respective lines are as continuous. > So, maybe the name change is to honour those soon dead? Of course, the name change has sociological / political reasons. It cannot have such biological roots since the policies around names were there way before we discovered this stuff. I'm afraid the reasons why we keep the male name in many places are simpler and way less poetic.
  - b112 2y ago
    I don't think there's such a difference between the two kinds of gametes One's a full cell with mitochondria, cell wall, and so on. The other just delivers genetic information. There's no symmetry. For example, all your mitochondria and its dna come from the female line. None from the male.
    - jraph 2y ago
      Yes, of course, there is a asymmetry. The shape and the material, of course. Another example is that while sperm is constantly produced, ova are all there since birth. But this part: > The cells which divided then, are the same cells as now Seems quite wrong. Ova of one woman obviously contains part her DNA, not her mother's unchanged. Now, I didn't know about the mitochondria part, interesting, thanks for teaching me!
fy20 2y ago
Lithuania has interesting rules about the surname, as it is gendered, and the suffix changes when the woman is married. Typically the father's surname is used, and the suffix is changed to match the rules. For sons it's easy, as the surname doesn't change, it just ends in a masculine ending. Most commonly -as, but less common are -is, -ys or -ius. For daughters, the masculine ending is replaced with a feminine ending such as -aitė, -ytė, -utė, or -ūtė. I'm not aware of cases where the father and son have different endings, but technically you could. However where it gets interesting is marriage. Typically married women take the husband's surname, but they change the ending to -ienė to indicate they are married. So a family with a daughter would result in everyone having a different surname, for example: Father: Tomas Žukauskas Mother: Eglė Žukauskienė Daughter: Gabija Žukauskaitė Divorced women typically take their father's surname, but use the married -ienė ending as it appears more sophisticated. Well known people may keep their father's surname even when married, but change the ending. Gendered suffixes are used for first names too (typically Lithuanian's only have two names), but they don't change for married/unmarried. For example Paulius for a man and Paulina for a woman. Lithuanian's love diminutives though, so a parent may refer to their children as Pauliukas (the son) or Paulytė (the daughter). And to make things even more fun, the suffix of names changes depending on gramative case. In the media foreign names are usually converted to their Lithuanian counterpart, for example Donaldas Trumpas.
- skirmish 2y ago
  > I'm not aware of cases where the father and son have different endings, but technically you could I am Lithuanian, and I never heard of that happen. This [1] also concurs: "Sons inherit their father's surname, with no changes." [1] https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Lithuania_Naming_Customs https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Lithuania_Naming_Custom...
hilux 2y ago
> in Norway it's quite common to take both parents' names now. What's going on in the name "Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen"?
- Tor3 2y ago
  That seems to be "Sven" - first name, "Magnus" - middle name, "Øen Carlsen", a combination of two last names, "Øen" from his mother and "Carlsen" from his father.
Toutouxc 2y ago
Adding to the list of weird traditions, I believe in Hungary the traditional way (nowadays not so popular?) was for the married woman to give up her ENTIRE identity (name AND surname), and just adopt the husband's full name with some suffix. Now that's insane.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

vitus 2y ago

> it was for them somewhat problematic at times that the siblings had different surnames (Björnsdottir and Björnsson), as people don't assume they're family, and especially not that the parents both had different surnames again. I've heard similar things with certain eastern European countries (Bulgarian has different forms for males vs females: Ivanov vs Ivanova), and also with various Indian populations where the child's last name is just the father's first name. Meanwhile I have the more mundane option where my father's first name is just my middle name.

colechristensen 2y ago

Christen's son emigrated to America several generations ago so that's when the name stuck for me.

cafeinux 2y ago

Are pat/matronymic surnames still used in the Feroe Isles? As I specifically know at least one dóttir, namely Eivør Pálsdóttir (which I love listening to, especially when she sings in Faroese).

erk__ 2y ago
The only source I could find on this in a Danish journal says that between 1992 and 2006 9% of kids got pat/matronymic surnames, so they are probably still used to some degree. Source: https://tidsskrift.dk/sin/article/download/17070/15768/ https://tidsskrift.dk/sin/article/download/17070/15768/

vidarh 2y ago

I know from genealogy when the patronymics "froze" in my ancestry, and also has a combination of farm names and patronymic surnames, and it's quite interesting to see how seemingly random the traditions were. (Incidentally, one of my great-great grandfathers was Swedish and the last one in that branch to take his fathers name + son. All of his children kept his last name; my own last name comes from a farm in Norway)

Netcob 2y ago

Here in Germany, you often come across surnames that end in "-ski", which I assume come from Poland. That is also an example of getting "stuck" with a specific version of a name: in Poland, that ending would indicate that the person is male, while "-ska" would be female, and there's even one when referring to the family that shares that name: "-scy". So whenever I meet a woman with a "-ski"-name, I wonder how many generations ago that name got stuck with just the male form.

arnsholt 2y ago

I don't know how it worked in Sweden, but in Norway I know that one of the most common conventions was for the surname to be the farm where you were born (so my great grandfather had a different surname from his younger siblings, because the family moved). But when farmers started moving into the cities, these names were looked down on so many country people took patronymics when they moved to the cities to obscure their background.

internet_points 2y ago

Real patronymics were outlawed in 1923 in Norway (earlier in Denmark). Before that, naming tradition was that the given name (Erik) was the most important, and you'd add a place/farm name (Horsebay) and/or patronymic (Sigurdsson) and/or nickname (The Foot) if you needed to disambiguate. Given and patronymic were fixed, while farm names and nicknames could change over time. This works well in a local community, but made it hard for the central government to collect taxes and conscript expendables^Winfantrymen. ==See also== * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oeconym https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oeconym * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_modernism#Standardized_legal_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_modernism#Standardized_le... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_variable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_variable * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characteristica_universalis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characteristica_universalis