Norwegian surnames: entertaining facts

"What's in my name for you?" Is a well-known phrase from the poem by A.S. Pushkin. True, he answered this question very modestly, suggesting that sooner or later it will die, it will be forgotten, as "the sound of the night in the woods is deaf." But, fortunately, the Russian classic was wrong. And at the expense of yourself, and about the concept of "name" in general, because it contains a lot of hidden things. What exactly? About this and not only we will be told by beautiful Norwegian names and names.

National Characteristics

There are AP. Chekhov's remarkable phrase that they have not yet invented such an object that would not fit for the Jewish family name. Well, Anton Pavlovich, as always, is ironic and accurate! And seriously, any name or surname is directly related to nationality. After all, when we call a child by the name of our people, the parent sends him a national gene, which will connect him not only with his close ancestors, but with all the people, his history and culture. Probably, therefore, fifty percent of Norwegian citizens wear traditional Norwegian names, and the second half are European ones. The latter are usually borrowings from the church calendar.

Value

Each name and surname has its own meaning. With what or with whom are the Norwegian names associated? In ancient times, many peoples had no distinction between the nickname and the name itself. Nor were the ancient Scandinavians, who at that time inhabited the territory of modern Norway. Over time, people stopped using nicknames like "Evil Eye", "Bullish Bone", "Wolf's Mouth" and so on. However, we can not say that this trend completely disappeared.

For example, many modern Norwegian names and names are associated with animal totems:

• Bjørn is a bear;
• Bernhard is a brave bear;
• Bjørgulv - a combination of two words bjarga - cherish, store and úlfr - a wolf;
• Chickadee - tit;
• Olv is a wolf;
• Svane is a swan.

It is impossible not to mention the surnames formed on the basis of nicknames and related to the surrounding nature:

• Wind is wind;
• Blizzard - blizzard;
• Spruce - spruce and many others.

And, at last, not less numerous group the Norwegian names designating employment of the person, personal characteristics make:

• Stian - a traveler, a wanderer;
• Helge - sacred, holy;
• Henrik - the mighty, the leader, the ruler;
• Olve - lucky, happy;
• Ottar is a warrior, a defender, awe-inspiring, horror;
• Bodvar - watchful, cautious warrior;
• Boye - messenger, messenger and others.

National domain

It is interesting to note that, until the beginning of the twentieth century, most Scandinavians did not even have names. They used patronymics instead. That is why many Norwegian surnames (male) end in son, sen, which in literal translation means "son". For example, among the most common, you can find such options as:

• Hansen is the son of Hans;
• Karlsen is the son of Charles;
• Larsen - the son of Lars and others.

As for women, the end is datter - daughter. For example, female Norwegian surnames may be:

• Anderdatter - daughter of Andre;
• Johandatter is the daughter of Johan;
• Jendatter is the daughter of Jena and many others.

Another feature of the names of the indigenous people of Norway is that they can consist of two or more words. The second part is, as a rule, such lexical units as:

• Bunn - the bottom;
• Felt - field;
• Hennes mann is her husband;
• Rock - rock, stone;
• Skog - the forest;
• Master - master.

Here it can be said that all the above-mentioned surnames have a so-called national domain - that helps to determine the origin of a people, a nation, this or that person.

Transfer

As a rule, proper names can not be translated. Their transition from one language to another occurs through transcription or transliteration, that is, by copying the pronunciation or spelling a name.

How correctly to give the Norwegian names and names in Cyrillic? The issue is very difficult. Why? A feature of the Norwegian language is the presence of its two official options. The first is Bokmål, which literally means "book speech." And the second - Nynorsk or Nyunoksh - the New Norse language. The latter emerged as a truly Norwegian alternative to the Bokmål, which was formed on the basis of the Danish language after four centuries of Danish rule in Norway. However, the so-called Danish-Norwegian language is more popular among the population. About 90 percent of the population speaks it. All the central mass media are printed on it. In addition to this official pair of languages, there are many more dialects.

Hence, almost every Norwegian who travels through the pages of the Russian press, immediately acquires two portraits. For example, Olav can be both Olaf and Ulaf; Anders is called Anders and Andes; Eirik turns out to be Eirik and Airik. And these are not isolated cases.