Patronymics, place names and family names

We can find many types of name in written records, but the main types are patronymics, place names and family names.

Patronymics

Patronymics (or patronyms as they are also called) are surnames derived from the father’s Christian name. If a man called Hans had a son christened Ole, the boy’s name would be Ole Hansen. Matronymics are corresponding names derived from the mother’s Christian name, but these are unusual in Norway except among the Sami people (for example the surname Sara). Patronymics were the common naming form in Norway up to the second half of the 19th century.

Place names

In Norway, surnames were sometimes derived from the place the person lived. A couple of examples of famous people with this type of surname are Ivar Aasen and Johan Falkberget. If Ole Hansen in the previous example lived on the farm Huseby, he could be called Ole Hansen Huseby to distinguish him from others by the name of Ole Hansen.

But this caused complications if a person moved, since he might then get a new suffix, Ole Hansen Huseby could become Ole Hansen Bakken, from his new place of abode.

Family names

Family names are surnames which are inherited. Family names became more common in Norway from the 1600s, especially in the cities and among the clergy and more affluent families. But there are examples of this type of surname also among the common people.

The nobility and landowners, as well as Danish clergy, had family names as far back as the Middle Ages, such as Ancher, Treschow, Lövenskiold, Wedel‐Jarlsberg, Astrup and Sverdrup. We can also find examples of persons whose surname was derived from their occupational title, such as Møller (miller) and Bødker (cooper), but this is not as common in Norway as in some other European countries.

A challenge for genealogists

One of the challenges for persons researching Norwegian roots is that names were often spelled in different ways in different records. The orthography was not standardised in earlier times, and a name like Brita could be recorded by one parish priest as Brite, Berte by another and Birgitte by a third. One can even find examples of the same priest using different spellings of the same person’s name in the same document. The records were made by fallible human beings, and they made errors and there were misunderstandings (sometimes due to dialect). So when you search in a database, it’s always recommended to try several different spellings.

Naming traditions

Naming patterns are an important help for those researching their family history. This knowledge can be of use when searching for likely candidates for forebears within a village, and even more so when an unusual name suddenly crops up on the family farm. For even though similarity of names alone is not valid proof of family relationships, there were such strict naming patterns in many country areas that one had to have a good reason if one decided to deviate from the practice.

The basic rules:

• Naming after the child’s grandparents
• Naming after the great-grandparents

Special rules:

• Naming after previous spouses
• Naming a child born or christened after the death of a parent
• Naming an illegitimate child
• Other rarer exceptions

To put it briefly, naming patterns in traditional farming areas consisted of naming the oldest son after his paternal grandfather and the next son after his maternal grandfather, while the oldest daughter was named after her paternal grandmother and the next daughter after her maternal grandmother.

But note that in some areas of Norway the rule for naming daughters was the opposite, i.e. the oldest daughter was named after her maternal grandmother and the next daughter after her paternal grandmother.

When all the grandparents’ names were used, it was usual to start naming children after their great-grandparents in turn. This custom led to siblings sometimes having the same Christian name, if both grandfathers were called Ola, two sons would be named Ola.

If one finds that certain Christian names one would expect to find among siblings are “missing”, the parish records may show that in between the children who survived to adulthood, there may have been others who died in infancy.

These naming patterns ensured that the family’s Christian names continued down through the generations on the farm. The special rules were applied when there otherwise would have been gaps in the sequence, or where early deaths necessitated “reviving” a name.

Most importantly, in the event of a remarriage, a child was to be named after the mother’s or father’s deceased spouse, so if the farm owner were dead, his name was to be used before naming a son after the paternal grandfather. If the child were born posthumously, or if its father died before the christening, he was given his father’s Christian name. Even girls could be given a name derived from their father’s Christian names (eg. Hansine, Jensine).

Naming traditions for illegitimate children

Traditions varied, but if the father acknowledged that he was the father, it wasn’t uncommon for a boy to be named after him, while girls were often named after a person on the mother’s side of the family.

But illegitimate children did not name their own children after their fathers.

Special exceptions could also be made in cases where a couple had received a farm as a gift from childless relatives, or if the previous generation had tried in vain to name a child after a certain person.

Sources: Knut Bryn (forelesningsnotater 2016) and Lars Løberg (Slekt og Data 2/2005) and Henning Pytterud