Comments on: Trees, flowers, mountains, stones

By: Kenny Easwaran

Kenny Easwaran — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 09:46:42 +0000

I believe that the Tamil naming convention gives one’s father’s name first and then one’s given name. However, unlike Hungarians and Chinese people, my father and his brothers (as far as I can tell) all ended up in North America with the same first name and different last names! Though it’s not entirely clear to me, because there seem to be special names (or perhaps terms, or descriptions?) that people within the family use to refer to one another, that may have little to do with their official names.

By: Jacob Christensen

Jacob Christensen — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 17:45:44 +0000

As far as I know, the Danish state never had specific regulations for the Jewish community with regard to family names. The Jewish community was always very small, so there were other ways of controlling it. If I’m not mistaken, then the oldest Jewish families in Denmark have Spanish/Portugese names.

The decree introducing obligatory family names originate from 1829 and that in turn led to the adoption of the “sen”(son of)-family names.

If I bothered to look, I would find a Christen (regional form of Christian) as a paternal ancestor – most likely in Western or Northern Jutland.

If I bothered to pay, I could change my oh so pedestrian Christensen – the 6th most common surname in Denmark – to either Lassen (maternal grandfather), Olsen (maternal grandmother) or Mouritsen (paternal grandmother).

There is a list of approved first names which is available from the Danish Family Agency.

Bonus information I: You can – in principle – tell a Swede from a Dane and a Norwegian by looking at the ~~son/~~sen ending. Danes and Norwegians use -sen, Swedes (and Icelandic) -son. But you will find -sons in Denmark (Swedish emigrants from the 19th Century) and the US authorities also messed up a lot of Danish and Norwegian names, so Mr. Olson or Larson could very well be of Danish ancestry.

Bonus information II: The Jewish-Danish writer Henri Nathansen had a curious mix of a Jewish (Nathan) and a Danish name (-sen).

By: nick s

nick s — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 05:36:07 +0000

I’m told that South American immigrants who have patro- and matronyms have trouble dealing with the USCIS’s computer system, which means that they essentially have to take new names on the path to citizenship.

A friend has a similar problem, in that he goes by a Hebrew name but has the anglicised equivalent on his birth certificate, and is known to the US authorities after moving there by a name not used on any of the British documents acquired since childhood.

Not quite the Ellis Island name-grinder, but close.

By: rio

rio — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 21:38:01 +0000

One side of my family is Jewish and Dutch, and I was always told that my surname came about due to a Napoleonic decree that Jews should have last names (I assume it is the same one listed in the original post). The family worked in the textile business so our name is just the Dutch word for a rather common household item. Here in the USA nobody can pronounce it, but whenever I travel to Holland or to Belgium almost every person I meet tells the same lame joke about how I’d be useful to have around the house. If only my anscestors had been engaged in some more exciting and/or louche work back then, I imagine it’d be a funnier joke.

By: Henry

Henry — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 20:20:26 +0000

theophylact, all I can say is it’s a good thing for your friend’s dad that he didn’t end up in Cork href=”http://crookedtimber.org/2004/12/28/up-the-peoples-republic-of-cork/” rel=”nofollow”>http://crookedtimber.org/2004/12/28/up-the-peoples-republic-of-cork/. More seriously, I wonder whether the German might not be the source for the Cork slang (probably not, but I’ve seen people come up with more preposterous folk-etymologies before)

By: theophylact

theophylact — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 18:36:55 +0000

I knew someone whose father was a German-Jewish immigrant named Langer. When he settled on the lower East Side, his neighbors thought that a funny name, because it meant “a tall, skinny guy”. So he changed it to the more “American” Goldstein…

By: Clarence

Clarence — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 16:43:38 +0000

Somewhere I have a conference paper on the Imperial Russian tribunal (maybe the Imperial Senate?) that ruled on name changes. While many peasants adopted patronymics as last names, apparently quite a few used nicknames by which they were known (not surprising, given how few given names Russians use). Their descendents, no longer wanting to have “Squint-Eye” or “Lame” or an obscenity as a last name, petitioned the government to change, usually to something like “Ivanov.”

By: fredrik

fredrik — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 16:18:06 +0000

In parts of Sweden patronymics worked into 20’the century. My great grandfather was Sven Karlsson, his son Gustaf Adolf Svensson, my father Bruno Svensson (born 1924, habit fading out by then but cousins kept is up), and I was Fredrik Brunosson.
To avoid the nautrual misconceptions that this caused we then cahgned to a new unique name, this process is still ongoing which results sometimes in rather strange names. The reason is that so many people have the same name that it creates problems: try to look for Per Johansson in the Stockholm phonebook.

Patronyics, variable or standardised as a name, creates confusion outside small villages, of course, so it became a habit for urban dwellers to make up a name. Straightforward natural phenomena or simple combiantions are the most common: Berg, Ekberg (Oakhill), Nyman (Newman)

For the aristocracy in the same situation, i.e. an ancestor from a peasant background (most noblemen were soldiers/officers), more elegant substances were used: Goldstar, Silvershield etc.
Gustaf Eriksson Vasa referred to above reflects the medieval habit, where aptronymics were used but noble families had a third name, usually based on their family crest (Vasa: fasces). of course many noblemen had a foreign background: Bildt e.g.

Of course some bourgeois families tried to make their name sound noble: Lagerfeldt:noble, Lagerberg:not. Lager: Laurel.

Priestly families on the other hand usually latinized e.g. the name of their ancestral farm or village: Linneaus (who Frenchified it to von Linné when he was ennobled)

By: bob

bob — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 16:09:51 +0000

Mencken has a story in The American Language about a German Jew who was made to take the last name “Schweisshund” (i.e. Swiss Hound). Asked by a friend why he didn’t pay the authorities to get a better name, he replied “Half my fortune went to buy the ‘w’ alone!”

By: dearieme

dearieme — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 15:41:51 +0000

There is a case of “compulsory” middle initials in post-WWII Scotland. So many boys in one primary school class were called Donald Macleod that the teacher called them Donny A Macleod, Donny B Macleod…. and they stuck. Allegedly.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 15:30:24 +0000

Why “Uz”?

By: Daniel

Daniel — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 14:07:23 +0000

they also audit the name as a whole for laughability, so Mr et Mme Renault are not allowed to call their daughter Clio.

By: John Isbell

John Isbell — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 13:17:37 +0000

As far as I know, in France it is still the law that first names must be either Greco-Roman (which has a Revolutionary/republican flavor to it) or a saint’s name. No Tuesdays or Cyndis.

By: bill in Turkey

bill in Turkey — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 12:09:04 +0000

Also, apparently in Iceland you are not permitted to give a child a first name that has not been approved by some sort of naming council.

Was this not also until recently the case in France – the mayor had a list of approved names against which the registrar had to check your application?

Also in Germany – and something similar (I think) in Turkey – at least for Turkish citizens: you must have at least one given name from a standard list though you may have more than one given name.

In Britain there isn’t a similar requirement (so people could presumably still end up with ‘Puritan’ names like ‘Praisegod Barebones’)

But I believe there’s a list of ‘names’ that you can’t give a child – I’ve been told or read that it includes ‘Satan’, ‘Jesus Christ’, ‘Uz’ and ‘Water’. I guess the list is issued to registrars of births and deaths.

(You may, though, be able to change your name by deed poll to something on the ‘forbidden list’ list

By: karlos

karlos — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 11:17:16 +0000

I heard a similary story from a Dutchman whose surname translated as “Shit in the basket”. He gave me the impression that these ridiculous or obscene surnames were actively chosen as a protest against the Napoleonic decree.

Although that could well be an instance of the rewriting of history to suit the writers.