"Tweed" wrote in message
...

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

Slavic? I thought it came from the Icelandic. There surnames come from the
first name of the parent.
So Magnusson is the male offspring of a chap whose first name was Magnus
something elseson. If he also had a female offspring her surname would
be
Magnusdottir. (Magnus’s daughter)

It made for an interesting telephone book....

It must make genealogy "interesting" because every generation of a family
will have a different surname, as will brothers and sisters.

In Icelandic, do *both* the sons and the daughters take the father's first
name? I have vague memories of being told that daughter's sometimes take the
mother's first name - so Magnus and Oddny (*) might have a son with a
surname Magnusson and a daughter with a surname Oddnydottir (rather than
Magnusdottir).

Do Icelandic women generally take their husband's surname after marriage or
do they normally / always keep their maiden surname?


(*) The only Icelandic person I knew was a woman with this rather unusual (I
hesitate to say Odd!) first name.