4 ms·
In good HN spirit, instead of praising the great quality of the article, I'll point out a minor nitpick: > Geirfinnur Einarsson may have shared the same surnam
by carlob 12y ago
In good HN spirit, instead of praising the great quality of the article, I'll point out a minor nitpick:
> Geirfinnur Einarsson may have shared the same surname as Gudmundur but the two were not related.
Einarsson is not a surname, but a patronymic. It's weird that later in the article it reads:
> Erla is longing for peace, so that future generations, the sons and dottirs of her grandchildren will know she was innocent and didn’t take part in a murder.
Here the author seems to grasp and even make a clever pun on Icelandic patronymics. Weird.
- vacri 12y agoA patronymic is functionally a surname. 'sur' means over- or on-; it's an additional part of a personal name. Wikipedia puts it well: "A surname is a name added to a given name and is part of a personal name". Surnames a generally a function of who you were born to, rather than a choice, just like a patronymic.
- Sharlin 12y agoBut patronymics are not used in Iceland the way surnames are used in the Anglosphere. For instance, even in a formal context, Geirfinnur Einarsson would not be referred to as "Einarsson" or "Mr. Einarsson". Also, Icelandic phonebooks are ordered primarily by given name.
- carlob 12y agoWell the comment was about people with the same surname being likely relatives. Knowing how patronymics work you would not assume that two persons that share the patronymic are related, just that their fathers have the same name. You are right in that they are actually a surname, and that they are also a function of who you were born to, but the propagation rule means that they are a much poorer metric for blood relations.
- mercer 12y agoI read it as the author raising a question that the reader might have, or sharing their process in understanding this fact.