What's in a name?

[lph]

The Brit royal names harken back to when people didn't have *last* names or family names. Ever looked into the names in Iceland or Greenland? Leif Erikson's child Sven would be Sven Leifson. At least you'd know who the kid's father was. And girls were *dottir*, so Leif's girl-child would be Helga Leifsdottir. I'm not sure what happens to names when a child matures and marries. Doe she take her husband's name?

Nope. They stay "-dottir" and "-sson", so married couples do not share names. At least not according to the traditional way of naming, they might have started doing so now.

"-dottir" and "-sson" are allowed as alternative last names in Norway too, but not very common. I like them

Last names used to be much more flexible. My grandmother's father (I think) changed his last name when he moved to a new town and opened a store, from a very common last name to the name of the property he bought. That was quite usual at the time. My grandfather's fathers name was from the place he grew up. Only a few generations back place names, "son of"-names and artisan names were pretty much all you had of last names, and they weren't necessarily inherited.

Which does put a new perspective on the whole "keeping your name" debate about women (or men) changing their names at marriage, and family members having the same last name or not.