Friday, November 25, 2011

Icelandification of foreign surnames

The best way of adapting foreign personal names along with surnames is prepositioning of the genitive plural of collective family names like 'skarphjaðningar': skarphjaðninga- followed by the personal name, the same construction as in Hrafna-Flóki, Hropta-Þór,...
examples:
François Mitterand: Mittrendinga-Franseis (the ending -ois corresponds with -eis in Icelandic words of French origin: courteois (kurteis), bourgeois (burgeis), hence François - Franseis
Nicolas Sarkozy: Sarkösunga-Nikulás (From the name Sárköz (pronounced in Icelandic: Sarkös), meaning 'mud strip'.)
Bill Clinton: Klinttýninga-Villi
Ronald Reagan: Rígninga-Rögnvaldur (The name Reagan is of Irish origin and means 'little king'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regan
Herman Pálsson mentions in his book 'Keltar á Íslandi' the Icelandicized Irish name Rígr (from , meaning 'king'). The diminutive ending -án in Irish personal names was Icelandicized either as -an (Feilan, Kjaran) or in a few examples as -án (Brjánn, Koðrán). The surname Reagan has the same origin as Ryan (Irish Rí + án, compare Bríán (brí (hill) + án (diminutive), Icelandic Brjánn). The Icelandic construction of Ríán is Rjánn, the derived family name Rjánungar. But in spite of the fact that Ryan and Reagan share the same origin it is better to use different constructions for these names: Rjánn for Ryan (corresponds to Brjánn for Brian) and Rígan, family name: Rígninga (the already Icelandicized Rígr with addition of -an) for Reagan.
As for the first name: Ronald is the Scottish form of the Old Norse Rögnvaldr.)
Madelin Albright: Albirtinga-Maðlín (adapted the name like Kaðlín, the Icelandicized form of the Old Irish Catilin. The existing Icelandic Malín and Magdalena aren't sufficiently phonetically similar.)
Helmut Kohl: Kolunga-Helmóður
Vladimir Putin: Pútnunga-Valdimar
Silvio Berlusconi: Berlúskunga-Silfár
Richard Dawkins: Dáknunga-Ríkharður
Dimitri Medvedev: Mjaðvöðunga-Dímóður (Medvedev derives from Medved which means 'bear' and is related to Polish Niedzwiedz, actually Miedzwiedz, the first element in which is derived from miód (honey) and related with Icelandic mjöður (mead). For that reason I adapted the family name as Mjaðvöðungar. The ending -ev is just a Russian suffix in surnames comparable to -ungur in Icelandic)
Lyndon Johnsson: Jónssyninga-Limdún (From an English surname which was derived from a place name meaning "lime tree hill" in Old English. In the past, I translated '-don' as 'hæð' and sometimes it is equalized with 'tún', but since I found out that it is of the same origin as Irish-Icelandic 'dún' (see book 'Keltar á Íslandi') I use this one.)

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