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NORWEGIAN NAMING SYSTEM
No study of your Norwegian ancestors can be undertaken without an understanding of their naming system. Many are confused by this system, but it is really very simple and extremely useful. In old rural Norway each person had a name with three parts: The given name, the patronymic or family name, and the farm name. Take, for example, the names Bard Arntsen Bordvika and Marit Olsdatter Enge (see Enge A:7). Here, Bard and Marit are given names, Arntsen and Olsdatter are patronymics, and Bordvika and Enge are farm names. In Norway a relatively few given names were commonly used, and there was a strong tendency for families to pass certain names down from one generation to another in a definite pattern. This pattern was not followed as strictly in Sømna as in other parts of Norway, but it was generally used up until around 1810. Almost always the first two sons and first two daughters were named for their grandparents. For example, Bard Arntsen and Marit Olsdtr. named their first two sons Arnt and Ole, and two of the daughters were named Marit aher Bård’s mother, and Kirsti after Marit’s mother. There wereexceptions to this rule. If either parent had a previous husband or wife who had died, then their name took precedence. Or perhaps one of the parents had a brother or sister who had recently died leaving no children. Then they might use this name first. If a child died, very often the next child of the same sex was given that same name. Occasionally, there were two living children in the same family with the same name. The important thing is to notice the pattern. These names are clues and can be used to find a child’s grandparents. The patronymic name indicates the name of one’s father. It is formed by adding the sumx "-sen" (son) or "-datter" (daughter) to the name of the father. Thus, Bard Arntsen, or Bard, son or Arnt; and Marit Olsdatter, or Marit, daughter of Ole. The farm name identifies the farm on which a person lived. As long as, and only as long as a person lived on any given farm, he tools the name of that farm. His farm named changed if he moved to a different farm. Thus, when Bard Arntsen Bordvilca married and moved to Enge, his name became Bard Arntsen Enge. You can therefore see that three brothers could have three different farm names, and that if more than one family lived on a farm, they would use the same farm name, but would not necessarily be related to each other. This farm name system was used in Norway up until around 1900. When the Norwegian immigrants came to America, they encountered a naming system quite different from that which they had used in Norway. They complied with this system in different ways. Some used their old fawns name, perhaps shortening it, Americanizing the spelling, or even translating it. Most, feeling that it was not proper to use the name of the home farm when they no longer lived there, decided to use the patronymics as the family name. This is why there are so many Johnsons, Larsons, Olsons, etc. Many times the spelling of the name was changed several times, or perhaps after some years of using a name like Olson, a family would decide to go back to a less common farm name. A few chose a new American name, but most immigrants chose a name which was meaningful to them. The following paragraphs are partial translations from Volume I.
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