Suggestion for Norwegian (+ Scandinavian) names

Question

Thomas Koehnline has been doing an absolutely amazing job clearing errors on the Norwegian profiles for the Nordic Noir team this weekend. On top of clearing location errors he takes the time to also correct the Norwegian naming errors which there is an enormous amount of for Norway. This doesn't count as points towards the Clean-A-Thon, and is time consuming enough so I think we really owe him a big thanks for fixing as not everyone has the expertise for this. So super duper thanks Thomas, great job!

But it got me thinking, if Swedes gets an suggestions for females with -sson in their names before 1900, and Dutch people get suggestions for middle name being used, shouldn't Norwegians get a suggestions for their problematic profiles as well? He gave me an example profile linked to this post.

As I understand it, its a patronym issue, farm names should not be used as surnames, and patronyms is for the most time the one that should be used as surnames and almost never as a middle name pre 1923 when it became law to have a hereditary surname in Norway. 

This is actually true for Sweden and Denmark as well, only the cut off limit on when people and the law actually started using hereditary surnames doesn't seem so cut and dry. 

I often see botched imports where both patronym and taken/given surnames are set as LNAB, and I for one would love to get suggestion lists for this, if there isn't one already. 

I think it's important that there is a standard for this, so that the system warns users with little knowledge of the patronym surname culture tries to add Scandinavian people with -sson/-dotter names as middle names, although farm names can be harder to spot at least it takes care of part of the problem.

I hope I made this post as clear as possible, my brain is a bit scrambled from lack of sleep, not only cause of the 'thon but because of a whole bunch of kids. 

Answer 1

Many thanks, Antonia, for making this post, & for all your kind words; it's been wonderful working with you over the past couple days!

A lot of people, especially Americans, may not quite understand the fact that gårdsnavn (farm names) were used more as epithets than actual names for a good portion of Norwegian genealogical history- a means of differentiating between people with the same name, sure, but not hereditary or permanent.

It'd be great to get these sorts of suggestions for Norwegian profiles. Of course, there were many specific & individual circumstances that make it difficult to declare any universal rules during the 19th Century, as the transition away from patronyms was not an immediate thing, but setting up suggestions for profiles born in Norway before 1923 with LNAB fields that do not end in -sen/-son/-datter/-dotter, if possible, would be a good way of going about things, & then the specifics of the profile (for instance, whether they were from Oslo/Bergen/other primarily urban municipalities, where the transition away from patronyms happened earlier than more rural parts of the nation, & should hopefully be indicated through birth & other relevant records) can be taken into account in responding to the suggestion. This would also cover any/all profiles using abbreviated patronyms (e.g. "Larsdtr," "Haakonsn," etc), which I'm sure we can all agree are generally not wanted.

Beyond trying to be historically accurate & logical, this is also just a matter of organization & standardization- there is a reason why we have a whole page on the subject of Norwegian naming conventions (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Norway_Project_Naming_Conventions).

Anyway, I'm also going to somewhat limit my rambling, given that I'm also sleep deprived (though I have no valid non-Thon excuse like Antonia). I have a feeling there's more to say, but it'll have to wait until I'm more awake. I would love to know how to bring this to fruition, though.

Comments

I found out as late as yesterday that the same naming system existed in Mora Sweden, where the girls born there only circulated through 3-4 names, and the men about 10, so the use for "nicknaming" people with the farm name or occupation name was a way to separate one Anna from another and one Olof from another. What surprised me is that occupation nicknames was inherited by both daughters and sons even if they did not have that profession. I am not sure if it's written the same way as in Norway as this farm name would be first in the name like a given name.

---

My favourite article about the farm names in Dalarna is this: https://spraktidningen.se/artiklar/2009/10/dalfolket-tar-med-sig-garden-i-namnet (in Swedish)

They are farm names - although pretty different from the Norwegian farm names.

Edit: one of my sixth great-grandfathers is Elin Hans Andersson.

---

Making suggestions customized to Norway is possible. You will just have to define the rules that I will implement.

From reading this post, I am a bit confused, since you are mentioning a lot of things (Middle name, lnab, ocupation, sson endings,...) We have to be systematic.

So first, would suggestions 911 and 912 be of interest

911 Swedish patronym DOTTER for male

912 Swedish patronym SSON for female 

How about 913 Swedish patronym DOTTER abbreviated

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:DBE_913

Then we can move to other problems.

---

I think this needs input from the Norwegians.

Concerning Sweden, I am happy with the recent modifications of the time span for #911 and #912. Am trying to reduce #911 to zero - but LNAB corrections take a bit of time.

I haven't really been working on #913 - but of course it's an error.

---

Hi, Aleš-

Sorry about the confusion- I was still getting used to the WikiTree+ site, & wasn't certain how best to phrase my answer. Having seen the 911-913 suggestions, I agree that they're a good place to start. Norwegian patronyms are a little more inconsistent than Swedish ones in spelling, however, which hopefully the suggestions can compensate for; the rules, as I believe would be most befitting, follow:

Norwegian equivalent of 911: Norwegian patronym -datter/-dotter for male

912: Norwegian patronym -sen/-son for female

I'm unaware of the internal mechanics of the 913 suggestion- are the 911-913 suggestions programmed specifically for Swedish profiles? Just for the sake of experimentation, I tried searching 913 for profiles with Norge in them, to no avail, so I'm assuming that's the case. A similar, or even identical suggestion for Norwegian profiles as "Norwegian patronym -datter abbreviated" would work.

Beyond the existing suggestions for Swedish profiles, I was thinking primarily about conventions with relation to WikiTree naming fields. Again, I'm unaware of much of the internal mechanics required, so I'll try to explain as best I can, & you can let me know if it doesn't make sense, or anything else.

1. Norwegian gårdsnavn (or farm name) used instead of patronym.

This would apply to profiles born in Norway before 1860 (&, in some areas, up to 1923, but 1860 seems like a reasonable cutting-off point overall), where the LNAB does not end in -sen/-son or -datter/-dotter. It's  designed to take into account the requested & accurate naming customs of the time period, & helps prevent disorganization & confusion among Norwegian profiles on WikiTree.

& the other suggestion I'd like to see & be able to use is essentially the same as 749:

2. Middle name used in Norway (prior to 1923).

With rare exceptions, a middle name, as we recognize it, did not exist for Norwegians prior to the full adoption of surnames, & most Norwegians who were given multiple names prior to that time used them in tandem. This is elaborated upon in the link I put in my original answer.

I think that's most of what I had in mind. Please let me know if I can elaborate on anything, or if I can do anything else

---

So basically if a -son/-sson/-sen/-ssen and -dotter/-datter shows up in first name or middle name fields it is likely wrong.

I am sure there are fancy families in Norway just like in Sweden that used family names (like nobility) that still slips in a -sson or -dotter once in a while as a middle name, but those can probably easily be marked as false errors.

The farm names in Mora seems to be used as given names so it is not so bad to fix, it is worse for Norway who gets the wrong LNAB and new profiles have to be created to fix the error.

---

Please leave the farm names in Dalarna (Sweden) alone. They are already signalled as Unique Names in many cases.

They only need to be marked as False errors - I hope there isn't a drive to make them into surnames.

---

On each help page, there is a section Technical Stuff where I try to describe the details about calculating the suggestion.

911 - Technical Stuff

All Swedish profiles are checked for ending -DTR or -DR in Last name at birth, Other last name or Middle name.

912 - Technical Stuff

All Swedish female profiles before 1800 are checked for presence of SON in Last name at birth, Other last name or Middle name.

913 - Technical Stuff

All Swedish profiles are checked for ending -DTR or -DR in Last name at birth, Other last name or Middle name.

So all 3 suggestions can't be found in Norwegian profiles by definition. 

It would be good to include examples of faulty profiles. Here you can see all Norwegian profiles from 17th century.

https://wikitree.sdms.si/default.htm?report=srch1&Query=Norway+17cen&MaxProfiles=500

So we could make similar suggestions like:

914: Norwegian patronym -datter/-dotter for male

915: Norwegian patronym -sen/-son for female

916: Norwegian patronym DOTTER abbreviated

Maybe I will merge them to existing ones and rename to Scandinavian.

About 749: It would be simple to apply to Norwegian profiles before 1923.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:DBE_749

749 - Technical Stuff

Checks for presence of the middle name for all profiles where birth location was identified as The Netherlands

There are 115000 profiles of people born in Norwey. https://wikitree.sdms.si/default.htm?report=srch1&Query=BirthCountry%3DNorway&MaxProfiles=150000

I can start preparing the suggestions, if you want.

---

@Eva I don't think we're talking about Swedish profiles really, I did compare the system a bit, but made a clear difference in how farm names are used Norway vs. Sweden and that I didn't see a problem or reason for a suggestion for the Swedish ones as they seem to be placed in the given name field and not LNAB. I am no expert at Dalarna so I wouldn't be the right person to write about it.  

I am pretty sure I only mentioned that it would be nice with a suggestion list for double names, but for that I do not think we really need a new suggestion, there might already be something in the suggestion list about LNAB's with space in it that I am unaware of.

---

I don't think there's any point in discussing "Suggestions" for Norwegian names as long as we don't have a leader for the Nordic Project. As Project Coordinator for the Norway Project I decline to take any responsibility for it.

Changing LNABs for profiles that have been abandoned long ago, while still not orphaned, is a long-drawn and tedious process. I can't see qualified people standing in line for this work. There are no hard and fast rules, but lots of corner cases which would need to be thoroughly discussed. Letting unskilled data doctors with no real understanding of old Norwegian naming practice loose on this may well create more problems than it solves.

---

@Eva (Late response but interesting to me) I came here after searching about how to enter Norwegian ancestors names and it's interesting that you posted the article about Dalarna as that's where my husband's Swedish ancestors are from and I have entered their names in my desktop database the way they talked about in the article, farm name, first name, patronym after seeing it that way somewhere. And the article talking about someone with the farm name Täpp, my husband's 5th great-grandmother was Täpp Anna Olsdotter.

Answer 2

Thomas, Thank you for the note.

Having to do with the Farm names. I don't know much, but here it goes, the oldest son or datter would inherent the farm and the farm name's goes on. The next son's or datter's would take the name of their spouse's and raise the kids with that last name, if the farm was sold the kids would kept their last name of the farm. We kept the last name of the farm, my grandfather sold the farm and moved to Stavanger, in the 1930's my grandmother broke the chain of names, like Savleson for his last name and kept Eik. In my case the pastor has power (1940's) my grandfather wanted to name Sam at the time, the pastor said NO! Sam is a last name, but Sem (Shem) can be used as a first name. This was told over and over by both parents at different times. This is my story about Names. (LNAB)