On Fri, 8 Jan 2021 11:45:50 -0000 (UTC)
Bob wrote:
Jeremy Double wrote:
Roland Perry wrote:

It's just a cultural thing, like many Europeans have names like Magnus
Magnus*son*, and innumerable similar Slavic suffices.

In Iceland, the “son� or “dottir� name isn’t a surname, it’s a
patronymic.
It doesn’t follow down the generations like surnames do.

So the son of Magnus Sveinnson could be Óðinn Magnusson and his daughter
SigrÃ*ður Magnusdottir.

I don’t see how that makes it less of a “surname�, as it is still a
second
part to the name. What makes it different it it is not an inherited
surname, as was the Frankish and now near universal custom, or some other

I doubt the Frankish approach had much affect on the far east or africa
where surnames AFAIK behave in the same way as in europe of their own
volition.