I had a conversation with one of our gudes in Iceland about names. It seems that they do not have a family name in the way that most Western nations do, indeed they are specifically forbidden to have such names under Icelandic law.
Their naming system is best explained by example.

If a man named

Lars Gundarsson

marries a woman named

Olga Edmunsdóttir

and have two sons and a daughter whom they name Olaf, Peter and Lisa the full names of those children will be

Olaf Larsson, Peter Larsson and Lisa Larsdóttir.

The reasoning is that children's surnames are always formed patronymically by adding "son" or "dóttir" the the first name of the father (along with a possessive s) so that in this case we have a family of five with four different surnames.

Icelandic phone books are listed in order of FIRST name.
Icelandic women do not change their name on marrying.

I didn't get around to asking him how the children are named if the father is unknown.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

In Tamil Nadu (a southern state in India) family names are rare, too. Men and unmarried women are are named first name (FN) father's first name (with no modification). Women after marriage use FN, husband's FN.

Inother countries, the father's first name is used as a middle name: e.g., Russia (with modification), Serbia (without modification), and Pakistan (without modification).

They use not just an -s- but whatever the appropriate possessive ending is. The son of Ólafur has the patronymic Ólafsson, while the son of Björn is Bjarnarson, the son of Helgi is Helgason, and so on. Icelandic still possesses declensional classes similar to those of Latin.

I didn't get around to asking him how the children are named if the father is unknown.
Interesting, Bob! Yet, like our American/UK cultures, still, the father's name is the most important. That's a pity. If the father is unknown, I wonder if they use the mother's name?

I cannot imagine the Chicago phone book being listed with first names!

I cannot imagine the Chicago phone book being listed with first names!

Well, there are about ten times as many people in Chicago as in Iceland.

According to the Iceland Tourist Board site:

quote:

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In the age of women's lib, increasing numbers of children are being given matronymics, i.e. identified as the son or daughter of their mother rather than their father.

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I'd guess that's what happens in cases where the child's fatherhood is uncertain.