Names of Popstars (Part 1)

Elvis Presley - Alvís Presló


1) Elvis - Alvís: Meaning is unknown. It is possibly a form of ALVIS (Icel. Alvís) or ELWIN or it might be derived from the surname Elwes. The name is adapted with most sound-similar Old Icelandic name: Alvís
2) Presley - Presló: The same name as priestley, derived from a place-name meaning 'woodland clearing of the priest'. The Icelandic equivalent of this name is 'Prestló'. In order to distinguish between the family names Priestley and Presley, we will also cut the 't' in 'Prestló', resulting in 'Presló'.

Keith Richards - Kíði Ríkharðs

1) Keith - Kíði: The name Keith derives from a Scottish surname which was originally derived from a place name possibly meaning "wood" in British. This was the surname of a long line of Scottish earls. The name is adpated to the Icelandic spelling with addition of -i.
2) Richards - Ríkharðs (Ríkherðingur)

Kurt Cobain - Kort Kobbeimur

1) Kurt - Kort (not Konni):
The Icelandic form of the German pet-name Kurt is Kort. Normally the Icelandic pet-form of Konáð is konni, but in iceladicizing foreign personal names one should less hyperpuristic than when dealing with other kinds of words. For that reason I choose Kort (see Íslensk Orðabók, önnur útgáfa, aukin og endurbætt, Mál og Menning, Reykjavík 1992.

2) Cobain -Kobbeimur
This family name is a toponymical one derived from Cobham, a village in Kent. The Oxford dictionary of English place-names mentions: Cobbeham 1197. 'Enclosureor homestead of a man called *Cobba (phonologically adapted to Kobbi in Icelandic). Old English pers. name + hamm (no Icelandic equivalent) or hám (Icel. heimur).The resulting Icelandic adaptation of the place name would be Kobbaheimur, but could also be contracted to Kobbeimur, with loss of the initial 'h-' in heimur, as is seen in many Old Norse place-names: Asseimur, Lisseimur, Surðeimur (see Íslensk Orðsifjabók) and modern Danish place-names like Bygum (Byggeimur), Darrum (Darreimur), see http://users.telenet.be/Hafronska/Icelandic_equivalents_of_the_Danish_place-names_(uncorrected_version).doc