Genealogy Forum UK

I'm researching my husbands danish family at the moment, and was wondering how many countries used patronyms. (Using the fathers first name to form the childs surname. So Jens Christiansens children would either be Jensen (Jens' son) or Jensdatter (Jens daughter).

I know Iceland still does! In Denmark it seems to have died out in the mid 1800's. Looking through the church records, the first thing I noticed was that the daughters were now "...sen" instead of "...datter", and their children took the fathers surname. There is also the confussion of a surfix, usually denoting a place or occupation, sometimes this would go down the generations and sometimes not!

I could also see that some familes obtained permission (usually from the bishop or even the king), to use the surfix as their official surname - even today the surnames that end in ...sen are thourght to be common, and people with rare surnames are very possesive of them. By law if there is under 2000 people who have a particular surname then it is protected, and not everyone would be able to use it as a surname. (So my surname's safe then )
The latest change in the law has made it possible to use Patronym's again, but I've not heard of anybody doing so.

A lot of Slavic countries still do it with their OVAs and ICHs.

It was used in some parts of Ireland hence the Fitz..... surnames such as Fitzjordon, Fitzgibbon etc.

I have found it quote common in my Welsh and Shropshire families to use the mother's surname as a middle name for the first born.

i.e I would be Mark Ford Dodd.

MarkCDodd wrote:A lot of Slavic countries still do it with their OVAs and ICHs.

It was used in some parts of Ireland hence the Fitz..... surnames such as Fitzjordon, Fitzgibbon etc.

I have found it quote common in my Welsh and Shropshire families to use the mother's surname as a middle name for the first born.

i.e I would be Mark Ford Dodd.

I've got a lot of my ancestors with mothers surname as their middle name, and it's quite common in Denmark today.

Does make life difficult though, as there isn't a hard and fast date when people stopped using patronyms in Denmark. So if the son is Anders Madsen, and the parents aren't named in the parish register when he married, then I don't know if I'm looking for a Mads Unknown or an Unknown Madsen!!! And some of the daughters are recorded both as ....datter and as ....sen, as well as their married name on the various census records! They do usually have their date of birth though, and if I'm really lucky, I'll be able to read the place of birth!

MarkCDodd wrote:A lot of Slavic countries still do it with their OVAs and ICHs.

It was used in some parts of Ireland hence the Fitz..... surnames such as Fitzjordon, Fitzgibbon etc.

I have found it quote common in my Welsh and Shropshire families to use the mother's surname as a middle name for the first born.

i.e I would be Mark Ford Dodd.

I think the "Fitz" used to mean that the person so named was the recognised illegitimate child of the person whose name followed ... Hence, Henry Fitzgerald was the illegitimate son of a man named Gerald. I seem to remember that this practice cropped up in the British royal families somewhere.