Possible duplication in Norwegian profiles...

Question

Could someone who understands Norwegian surnames please take a look at a couple of profiles? They're not identical, but they're so similar that, if they were English, I would suspect typos and seriously consider a merge. But I can't make that kind of assumption here -- I know very little about Scandinavian naming conventions, and the slight differences may indicate that they really are two different people. They have the same parents, but have two different LNABs, and the birth dates are not identical. Here are the links:

Elen Anna Samuelsdatter

Elen Anna Samuelsdtr

Does the -datter suffix indicate that this is "Samuel"s daughter? (If correct, that's the extent of my knowledge here.) If so, is the second profile's LNAB actually an abbreviation?

Comments

Sometimes if a child died, the next one would be named the same except for the middle name (I've seen this a number of times, and it also was true in my mother's family).

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Two, same-sex babies born in Norway about 9  months or more apart to the same parents may be given the exact same name if the first one died before the 2nd was born. I have many like that in my family especially when the infant who died was intentionally named after her deceased maternal grandmother.  If both grandmothers had the same given name, the first two daughters could be given the same name in memory of the grandmothers. They may have a 2nd name that was different.  Sometimes they were referred to as Stor (Big) and Lit (Little);e.g. Stor Ola and Lit Ola.

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Yes dtr is a standard abbreviation for dotter or datter

And one of those Elen's died a year after she was born, so the name was reused, as was the custom, which previous commenters mentioned also

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See also the Norway Project Naming Conventions. Note that the female patronymic suffix "-datter" always should be fully spelled out, or the name won't be recognised as a candidate for matching and merging.

Answer 1

They are not the same person. Elen b. 1833, died as an infant so the next daughter born, was named the same. Was their custom to name children after the ancestors, so each one that dies, the next born will get that name, and sometimes name the same, just in case one doesn't live."dtr" is a common abbrev for of "datter", or dotter in other Scandinavian countries.

Comments

I'm glad I asked! Thank you.

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We have the same in Sweden that the name a child that died young is "reused".

Often the name is also a name used by relatives to the baby like a grandfather etc....

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It's like they didn't have more than a handful of names to go around. ;-) What more did they need, than Anna, Britta, Stina, Karin and Maja? I even have a family where the oldest daughter is Anna and the youngest Annika = a diminutive of the same.

And then all of a sudden you get an Apollonia or a Hebbla. (These also recur from generation to generation in a few parishes - the origin will usually be from a godmother in the local nobility).

We are not talking about the spree of Euphrasias and Seraphinas of the Victorian age.

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@Eva

Two blogs in Swedish about names

• Jag döper dig Xecia Yrsa Zefonia - about how the name changed when people started to move and the population increased - Google Translated
   
  • I have Sofia Olivia Lindner who named her children all with a name starting on letter V : Valborg, Viola Virginia, Vilhem Valfrid Verasoff, Vera Sofia Vilhelmina Viberg, Vega, Vitus, Vendela, Wallmina, Vennelfrid
     
• Kärt barn har många namn - about children getting more names like this girl that got 12 names Selma Maria Elisabet Thyra Asta Anna Constantia Agnes Gerda Ester Barbro Margareta  - Google Translated

Answer 2

Patricia has answered the main question, but I have another concern, two actually.  The first is that the originating GEDCOM apparently had each of the girls and women with names ending in "dtr.", that's 3 letters and a period, and the created LNAB's all have that period still embedded (e.g Samuelsdtr.-3, Mikkelsdtr.-1), including her mother, sisters, and daughters.  I see Kitty has removed the period from the first Elen's LNAB, and I hope she or someone will remove it from the rest (and clean up the bio's).  Is there ever a valid reason for a period in an LNAB?  Perhaps a db error should be created for them.

My second concern is the abbreviation.  It's my opinion that they should all (-dr and -dtr) be spelled out, as -datter for Norway, -dotter and -dottir for the other Scandinavian countries.  They themselves did not spell the names, so there's no one right way to be preserved.  It makes sense therefore for us to conform them to the same spelling style, and uniformity certainly helps with searching and matching them.

Comments

Yes, they should all be spelled out, -datter.

For Sweden there has even been created a DataBase Error for the abbreviated dtr.

I think you are right that there is no need to consider the abbreviations as "their own convention"

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I  completely agree with Eva. The subject has been discussed before and there is no reason at all to abbreviate a name. Rather the contrary, it will confuse the search and comparison processes in the database and should absolutely be avoided/corrected. We do have a Swedish crusade to get rid of -dr, -dtr etc and would encourage any other national similar situations to go the same route. I have seen it in Norwegian and Danish profiles and tried to push in that direction. Perhaps we need to write in the guidelines that abbreviations are not acceptable in name fields to strengthen the approach?

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Completely agree.  I hope that those in charge of writing guidelines and Database Errors will see this.

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Are you also going to start using the Norwegian and Swedish alphabets so we don't try the approximate in English. I know that there are some Naess that should be Næss.

A simple explanation might be in order: The first name is handed down (first son gets father's father's name, etc), second name is based on father's name and ends with -datter or son and third name is the name of the farm they live on, so it may change with every generation and the husband may takes the wife's last name if he moves to her farm.  Does that simplify?  It gets more complicated, but that's the simple form

Judy

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