Icelandic Names: How They Work, What They Mean, and Who Approves Them

A father, his son, and his daughter can all have different last names. When you meet Icelanders, first names are the norm, even in professional settings. Place names often describe the landscape: foss means "waterfall," while jökull means "glacier."

Many Icelandic first names have Norse origins and arrived with the settlers. Björn, meaning "bear," belongs to this older tradition. Auður appears in medieval accounts of Iceland's settlement. Christianity later added biblical and saints' names, including Pétur and María. Nature vocabulary shows up too: Jökull serves as both a personal name and a landscape term.

One quirk of the Icelandic language stands out in personal names. Unlike Scandinavian Olaf and Olav, Icelandic Ólafur preserves the final r of Old Norse Óláfr, with a u inserted before it. Old gods live on in names, too: Þorsteinn (“Thor’s stone”) and Þórdís (“Thor’s goddess”) carry the name of Thor, the Norse god of thunder, spelled Þór in modern Icelandic.

An Icelandic patronymic comes from a father's given name; a matronymic from a mother's. In either case, the parent's name first takes the genitive, or possessive, form. Then add the ending: -son for men and boys, or -dóttir for women and girls.

Take Egill Jónsson and Selma Traustadóttir. Their son could be Gunnar Egilsson, and their daughter Helga Egilsdóttir. Gunnar's own daughter might then be Ragna Gunnarsdóttir. Each last name identifies a parent, so the form changes from one generation to the next. The Icelandic singer Björk follows the same pattern: her full name is Björk Guðmundsdóttir, after her father, Guðmundur.

Patronymics are far more common, but some Icelanders choose a matronymic or a form based on both parents. Former Reykjavík mayor Dagur Bergþóruson Eggertsson has both: Bergþóruson comes from his mother, Bergþóra, and Eggertsson from his father, Eggert. People with a neutral gender registration may use -bur, an Old Norse term for "offspring," or the parent's genitive name without an ending.

An Icelandic naming study found that about 82% of the population had a patronymic or matronymic at the start of 2017. More than 98% of those names were patronymics. The data also showed that 2% of women aged 18 to 30 carried a matronymic, compared with 1% of women aged 30 to 50.

Yes, Icelanders have inherited surnames, although only a small minority of the population carries one. A 1925 law stopped people from adopting new family names, and the current Personal Names Act keeps that restriction. At the beginning of 2017, around 12,000 people in Iceland had a family name, almost 4% of the population. Blöndal, Thorarensen, and Hansen were the three most common, with 324, 293, and 282 bearers.

Vídalín is the oldest known family name in Iceland. Arngrímur Jónsson the Learned first used it in the 17th century, drawing it from Víðidalur in Húnaþing. Thorlacius, formed from the patronymic Þorláksson, came soon after. The practice spread in the 19th century, when some Icelanders studying in Copenhagen adopted it to follow local custom.

Current law allows these names to descend through both male and female lines, so daughters can inherit and pass them on. Eligible people may also carry a family name alongside a patronymic or matronymic. Nobel laureate Halldór Laxness was Halldór Guðjónsson into his 20s, and he changed to Laxness in 1923, two years before the ban.

Jón and Anna led Iceland's population-wide first name rankings in 2025. Sigurður and Guðmundur followed Jón among men, with Guðrún and Kristín behind Anna among women.

The names chosen for babies in 2025 looked different. Matthildur and Embla topped the girls' list, and Birnir and Matthías the boys'. Hekla appeared 16 times and Katla 13 times in the newborn data. Both are also names of active volcanic systems in Iceland.

A study based on January 2017 data found that 35% of people younger than 30 had inherited at least one given name from a grandparent. About 80% of the population shared a pool of 200 female and 200 male names. Roughly 62% had more than one given name. On the 2025 chart, Anna María ranks highest among the two-part names shown, and Jón Þór leads for men.

The Icelandic Naming Committee (Mannanafnanefnd) decides on given names that aren't already approved and maintains the Personal Names Register. The 1925 naming law had been unevenly enforced for decades. A new act replaced it on November 1, 1991, and created the committee to settle disputes.

The official name-giving guidance summarizes the rules applied to proposed names. A name must take an Icelandic genitive ending or have established usage, and it must be grammatically correct. Its spelling must follow Icelandic rules unless another form is already in established use, and it must not cause the bearer embarrassment. Anyone can search the Personal Names Register online, where cleared names appear in blue and refusals in red.

The absence of C, Q, W, and Z from the standard alphabet doesn't automatically bar a name. Current committee practice can allow those letters in loan names under its tradition rules. As of October 2026, a request to add a new name costs 4,300 ISK ($35 / €32). The committee must issue its ruling within 4 weeks of receiving the case, and its decisions can't be appealed to a higher administrative authority.

Iceland's Personal Names Act No. 45/1996 replaced the 1991 law and still governs personal names, with later amendments. The 1996 act eased rules that had proved too strict and allowed middle names for the first time. One of those amendments came in 2019 and dropped the requirement that girls carry female given names and boys male ones. First names are no longer legally tied to registered sex.

Earlier proposals sought to abolish the Icelandic Naming Committee. A naming bill from MP Jón Gnarr, resubmitted to Iceland’s parliament, the Alþingi, on September 14, 2026, would keep the committee, widen access to family names, and add a new surname category. As of October 2026, those changes remained proposals, not law.

A child with one foreign parent may receive one given name or middle name valid in that parent’s home country. At least one given name must still meet Icelandic rules. A child is registered with a matronymic or the mother’s family name where paternity hasn’t been established. The guardians choose the surname once the father is recognized.

Two disputes, over the names Blær and Harriet, show how Iceland's older naming rules worked in practice. In 2013, Reykjavík District Court recognized a girl's right to use Blær, which means "breeze." The Naming Committee had refused it as a female given name. The court invalidated that decision, and the committee then added Blær to the register for women, keeping it listed for men, too. Under today’s rules, Blær would need no court case, because the 2019 reform ended the male-female split in given names.

In 2010, the committee rejected the names Duncan and Harriet because neither was originally Icelandic and neither followed Icelandic spelling rules. Duncan’s c, for example, fell outside the Icelandic alphabet. The British-Icelandic Cardew children were registered as Stúlka (“Girl”) and Drengur (“Boy”) Cardew instead, and their passports carried those placeholders.

In 2014, Registers Iceland refused Harriet a new passport because her name wasn’t approved. The Ministry of the Interior overturned that refusal in August 2015 and had her registered as Harriet. The ruling rested on her family’s citizenship, not the name: her father is British, and her mother holds US as well as Icelandic citizenship. Icelandic law allows a foreign name when both parents are nationals of another country, so the spelling and grammar tests that blocked Duncan and Harriet still stand.

To sound out an Icelandic name, start with the first syllable, where the main stress normally falls. Accent marks such as á and é change the vowel sound instead of moving the stress. The cues below cover the letters that come up most often in personal and place names.

For a long compound, look for smaller word parts before trying the whole name. The name of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, for example, breaks down into Eyja-fjalla-jökull: island-mountains-glacier. Practice the three parts, then say the full name as one word.

Icelandic place names often carry clues about the landscape, position, or natural resources. Learning a few recurring roots won't translate every name, but it can help you recognize what kind of place you're looking at.

Þingvellir shows that a name can record human history as well as geography. The word means "Assembly Plains," and Iceland's first Alþingi gathered at Þingvellir National Park in 930. The same logic applies to Icelandic volcano names: Litli-Hrútur is "Little Ram," and Víti is "Hell."

You can work out an Icelandic-style parent-based last name, not a complete legal name. Choose one parent's first name, put it in the genitive, and add -son or -dóttir. A neutral registration swaps in -bur, or drops the ending entirely.

Anna → Önnu → Önnuson / Önnudóttir / Önnubur

The middle step matters because the ending isn't always attached to the form of the name you normally see. In the genitive, Anna becomes Önnu: the first a shifts to ö and the final a to u, so Annadóttir would be wrong. Don't assume a foreign parent's name works the same way, since Icelandic law allows the Naming Committee to adapt a last name derived from a foreign parent's given name to Icelandic. For Icelandic first names, the Árni Magnússon Institute's BÍN database lets you find inflected forms, including the genitive, before trying the formula yourself.

Blöndal, Thorarensen, and Hansen were Iceland’s most common family names at the start of 2017, according to Statistics Iceland. Only about 4% of people in Iceland carry a family name, though. Most have a patronymic or matronymic instead, and no official ranking of those exists. Jón topping the men’s first-name list doesn’t prove that Jónsson or Jónsdóttir leads.

No, marriage doesn’t change an Icelandic woman’s last name. Icelandic citizens can add a spouse’s family name only as a middle name, so her patronymic or matronymic stays as it was. One household can therefore travel under four different last names. Registers Iceland prints each person’s full registered name in their passport, so enter every passenger’s name exactly as it appears there.

Yes, a foreign surname stays exactly as it is, and becoming an Icelandic citizen doesn't change that. The Personal Names Act lets anyone with a foreign name keep it in full. On January 1, 2017, 14% of people in Iceland carried a last name that was neither a patronymic nor an Icelandic family name. That group, mostly foreign surnames, was more than three times the size of the 4% with an inherited Icelandic one.

Nothing happens automatically. Registers Iceland writes to the guardians first and asks them to name the child. A second written warning follows if they don't act within 1 month and give no good reason. After that, daily fines of up to 1,000 ISK ($8 / €7) can start, and they continue until the child has a name.