Those Norwegian names, tips for the "online" researcher

By Børge Solem - 2002 (revised 2024)

Norwegian Naming Traditions

Understanding Norwegian naming traditions can be key to overcoming challenges in genealogical research. This article explores these traditions and discusses the potential hurdles and benefits they present to online researchers. Have you hit a brick wall while tracing your Norwegian ancestors? This guide might offer the clues you need to continue your journey.

Background History

In ancient times, and up until about 100 years ago, a person’s "first name" was their primary identifier. Surnames, as we know them today, did not exist. The Vikings believed that a child would gain qualities and protection from the entity they were named after, such as animals or weapons. Old Norse names originally consisted of two components: a prefix and a suffix.

You’ve probably heard of "han Ole" and had a good laugh at the Ole jokes. But have you ever thought about the actual meaning of the name? "Ole" is actually the Danish form of the Norwegian "Olav" or "Olafr," which are Old Norse names. The oldest known form, "Anulaibar," is constructed from the prefix "anu," meaning "ancestor," and the suffix "laibar," meaning "descendant" or "heir." If we attempt a loose translation, it might be something like "ancestor’s descendant." What a fitting name for a genealogist to discover! However, you might not be as thrilled to find an ancestor named "Ole Olsen" - especially if you lack any additional information!

Through all times, the old names have been the subject of random changes, and developed along with the phonetics in the spoken language. Many names were shortened, and are hardly recognizable today from their original form. However, many of the old norse names are popular today in some form or another. People also started to use names consisting of only one component, and those are believed to originally have been "nicknames", as they usually were descriptive of the person. Examples of this are names like Kåre (Kaare), which indicates that the person had curly hair. As the old vikings started to trade and travel more widely in Europe, they also adopted foreign names which were imported in to Norwegian tradition. Up through the centuries there has been great influence from other parts of Europe like Germany, Britain and Denmark.

When christianity was imposed, people gradually started to name their children after saints and persons mentioned in the bible. By naming their children after a saint they may have believed that this would give the child some kind of protection, like the old norse names. However, those saints, and other figures from the bible, had names which was not always fitting in to the Norwegian language and many of those names where therefore "Norwegianized". Some of the most common names in Norway origins from christianity, like Johannes, Hans and John. Both Hans and John are short forms of Johannes, which comes from Hebrew name "Jochanan", originally "Jehohanan". Some other popular names are Kristian, Kristen, Christian, and Christoffer, which all have strong roots in christian tradition.

What we see, when working with the sources like censuses and passenger lists, is that names tend to have many quite similar forms. We will also discover that there were great variations in how they were written. You might think that this would not be a problem, as you know your ancestors name, and will recognize it when you see it in the source you are working with. This is true, but not with the digital sources. Lets say you knew your great-great-grandfather's name was Christopher, and went searching for him in the 1801 online census at the Digitalarkivet. You typed "Christopher" and didn't find him. The reason might be that there are so many forms of that name in the database. Searching for names starting with "Krist" returns 4 variations, and by searching for names starting with "Christ" we get another 13 variations:

When searching the 1865 census for names starting with "Christ" we get as many as 30 variations:

Another posibility is searching without the "h" in "Chr", as you will also find variations such as "Cristopher". My point here is that you should always keep in mind that there could be variations of the name, which you would easily have spotted if you looked at the original source, but might miss in a search. You should also note that you might find different variations in different sources, even if it is the same person. People did not have an ID-Card in the old days, they would tell someone what their name was, and that person would write the name the way he heard it spoken, and in the way he was used to, there were no rules to how a name should be written. As an example my great-great-great-grandmother from Eid in Norfjord was entered in the church records as "Giøde" when she was baptized, "Jødda" when she was confirmed, and "Gyda" in the 1865 census. There are other names like those starting with the prefix "Eng" which is also often written "Ing", with additional variations like Engebrecht, Engebricht, Engebreth, Engebreiht, Engebregt, Egebrigt, Ingebrecht, Ingelbrecht, Ingebrett, and so on. Names starting with "Ch" are also written with "K", and there are names like Østen and Osten, or Aaste, Åste, Oste. Use your imagination! You must also have in mind that when you tell a search engine to do the search for you, it will only recognize exactly what you tell it to. This is something most search engines have in common.

There is also another problem, and that is the introduction of double names in the 1800's. My great-great-grandfather who was born in 1841 was named "Johan Richard", all of his 3 brothers also had double names and 2 of them were also named Johan:

However, in some sources I find my great-great-grandfather noted as "Johan Richard" and in other sources just as "Richard". Richard married "Maren Anna", who only used the name "Anna". They had 3 children:

When you have people with more than one name, you should expect to find all kinds of variations and usage of the different names. There is one thing I should mention here; lets say you were pretty sure about your great-grandfather was named Ole, because that was the name he used in America. You want to find him in the "Emigrants from Oslo" database and search for "Given name" "equals" "Ole". The search engine will do exactly as you tell it to, and return a list of 7623 person with the given name exactly equaling "Ole". But something is wrong, you didn't find your great-grandfather!. We know for sure that Ole departed from Oslo (Christiania, Kristiania), and we assume that the database is complete (which it isn't yet). Why didn't the search engine find you great-grandfather? - Maybe he had a double name, lets try another angle with the search engine, tell it to look for "Given name" "starting with" "Ole", now it returns a list of 10112 persons, and among them are all those Ole J. (88), Ole Kristian (207), Ole Andreas (86), Ole P. (68) and so on. I have also seen examples of people with 2 names like "Øyvind Andreas", which used the name "Øyvind" in Norway, who starting to use the name "Andreas" when emigrating to the US, and then changing it to "Andrew". To find "Øyvind Andreas" in the census, if you only knew him by the "Andreas" name, you would have to search by names "containing" "Andreas". Many people would "americanize" their names as they immigrated to America, which means that in some cases you need to use quite a bit of imagination to figure out what names to look for in the Norwegian sources.

A patronymic name (pater=father, lat.) is a name constructed from the father name. Now, we all know there were quite a lot of people by the name of Ole, and therefore it was necessary to identify people by something more than just their given name. So, if Ole's father was "Hans", he would be "Ole Hansen". The patronymic is in general the fathers name as a prefix, and "sen", "son" or "søn" as a suffix for males, and "datter" or "dotter" as a suffix for females. In some sources we find the male suffix "sen" or "son" used also for females, and I often see that in passenger lists. There are variations on how the names were constructed, like you should actually expect that the son of Ole would be (Ole's-son) - "Olessen", but it is usually constructed as a short form "Olsen". We do also se variations like "Olssen". From Johannes we se variations like "Johannessen" and "Johannesen", the same goes for "Niels" (or "Nils"), which becomes "Nielssen" or "Nielsen" (with all variations of the suffix - sen, son or søn).

You could say, that in many ways the patronymic served as a surname, but not in the way we use them. However, a patronymic was a name you would carry with you all your life. The patronymic is a valuable lead to finding the parents of a person, as it automatically gives us the name of the father. However, what we see in many cases when Norwegians emigrated to America, or other parts of the world, is that they adopted the naming customs of their new country, and started to use the father's patronymic as a surname for all of the members of the family. In many cases both male and female members of a family used the "sen" or "son" suffix, and in many cases changed from "sen" to "son" as a small adjustment. (I actually see this is in some early Norwegian passenger lists).

Examples:

NOTE, searching our emigrant database:

When entering something in the Farmname/Surname field, the search automatically returns all names CONTAINING what you entered in that field.

Norwegian-Americans often Americanized their names. They actually also in some cases Americanized even their parents' given names, even though the parents never emigrated. You will find this Americanizing phenomenon in applications for Social Security numbers, in applications for marriage licenses, and on death certificates. It was not uncommon to change a to a name that sounded almost the same as the original name, and that Americans could pronounce. (If you have examples on Americanized Norwegian "American-sounding" names, I would appreciate if you would share that information with me.)

Below is another excellent example, submitted by Jo Anne Estrem Sadler in Glendale, CA. It is the name progression for Jo Anne's father's great-greatgrandfather, Anfin Anderson Estrem from Vang, Valdres. He was the son of Anders Torkjelson Gåsdeilde and Gunhild Arnfinsdatr. Berge at - Østrem Gard. The parents information is from the 1801 census. Source: Digitalarkivet, 0545 Wangs, Oppland.

As there could be several people in a village by the name of "Ole Olsen", it was common to add the farm name for closer identification. My ancestor "Johannes Olsen Solem" got his full name because his parents christened him "Johannes" and his fathers name was "Ole", and they lived on the "Solem" farm. In this way the names told quite a bit about a person. You should not think this would cause a problem for you, but actually it can, as people moved quite a bit. When a person moved from one farm to another, he would be known by the name of the farm he moved to. So if "my" Johannes Olsen Solem had moved to another farm, he would have become Johannes Olsen Berg, or Dahl or whatever name the farm had. Some people moved many times during a lifetime, and will thus be known by many different names.

It is also a problem when searching the online sources for farm names, that there were variations of those names also. Here is an example submitted by Patty Goke: Lånke - Laanke (an obvious one) and in the US, Lunke. And then we have Nesvoll - Nestvoll - Nestvold - Næsvoll - Næstvoll. Another problem is that there were, and are still, several farms around Norway by the same name. So knowing the name of the farm often is not enough to tell where in Norway that farm was located. I often get e-mails from people who bears the Solem name, wondering if we are related. Checking the 1865 census for "farm names" "equals" "Solem" returns a list of 95 farms, situated in Buskerud, Telemark, Aust-Agder, Rogaland, Hordaland, Sogn og Fjordane, Møre og Romsdal, Sør-Trøndelag and Nord-Trøndelag.

Many of farm names are very old, dating back to the bronze age, and they have a meaning. They are often descriptive of the landscape. Solem, Solum or Solheim describes a farm on a place with a lot of sun. The prefix is "Sol" (sun) and suffix "heim" (home). You might find an explanation of what your name means on the Oluf Ryg database of Norwegian Farm Names at the "Dokumentasjonsprosjektet" web site.

As pointed out earlier, people started to keep the farm name as a surname even after moving from the farm, like my great-great-great-grandfather Johannes. His wife also used the "Solem" name after their marriage in 1833. Towards the end of the century it became more common to use last names like that, and we even se that people started to use patronymic names as last names. The wife then took her husbands patronymic as her last name by marriage, and their children would also use the fathers patronymic. In some families we see some children using a patronymic in the traditional way, while other siblings used the fathers patronymic as a surname. It can be quite confusing, but one should bear it in mind when doing research online, and meeting the brick wall.

In 1923 a law was passed, which made it compulsory for every person to have a fixed family name. Many families then froze the patronymic or the farm name as their family name.

I'll mention the old norse naming traditions first, even though it might not be relevant to us when searching for our ancestors. However, it is still interesting. When naming a child it was a custom to use a component from both the father's and the mother's name for the first born of both sexes, and from other relatives names for the next siblings. Example:

father: Bjørnar (prefix "Bjørn" suffix "ar")
mother: Gunnild (prefix "Gunn" suffix "ild")
son: Gunnar (suffix "Gunn" from the mother's name, and suffix "ar" from the father's name)
daughter: Bjørnild (suffix "Bjørn" from the father's name, and suffix "ild" from the mother's name)

In the more recent times, from which we have written material that can serve as sources for genealogists, we find other naming traditions.

When a couple was married and had children, the custom was that the first born son was named after his paternal grandfather, with the exception of when a man married a woman and took over her father's farm, then we usually se the first born son named after the maternal grandfather. The second born son would usually be named after his maternal grandfather. The first born daughter was usually named after her paternal grandmother, and the second born daughter after her maternal grandmother. There were some other exceptions, when one of the spouses died, and the remaining remarried. The first born child of the same sex as the deceased was named after him or her. Also, if one of the parents of an unborn child died prior to the child being baptized, one would name a child of the same sex as the deceased, after him or her. If a child died, the next born child of the same sex was usually named after the deceased child.

Those spacial characters in the Norwegian alphabet can cause a lot of trouble for online researchers. In Norway every keyboard comes with keys for those characters, but as I understand, not all keyboards in other countries have them.

On some computers you will have to press the keypad numbers on the right side, not the numbers on the top of the keyboard.

Most of those who have been searching for their Norwegian ancestors on the web, has come across those funny signs by some names in the different online sources, on the Digitalarkivet, and other places. Yes, you are right, we also do have them in our database of Norwegian emigrants 1825-1875. From time to time I get questions about what they mean, and why they are there.

It is actually a long history. Some Norwegian historians were working on a project in finding a standard for transcription of historical data from censuses to digital databases. Their work was completed in 1995, and the standard was named "Histform".

Histform gives instructions and a format for the registration of the Norwegian censuses from 1865 to 1910, but the system is also very suitable for the registering of other sources, like the passenger lists. The idea was to find a common computerizing format for the censuses. What we have adopted from the standard is the usage of the special signs.

Special signs:
?? signifies that the handwriting in the original is indistinct or illegible. Part of a name, or an entire name might not be possible to decipher. Example:

Ref	Name	Patronymic	Farm/surname	Age	Sex	status
1	!!	!!	Holfeldt	29	f	Mrs.
2	Wilhelm	!!	Ant??ick	29	m
3	Hendrick	!!	Sandemo??	30	m

!! signifies that this information in the source must be wrong for obvious reasons. !! alone in a field means that the information is missing, see example above

@ is used as a separator between two alternative readings of the original when it is impossible to decide which is the correct one.

% indicates stricken out text in the source. If a word or a sentence is stricken out it is marked with a % in front and behind the stricken out word.

* after a piece of information, e.g. a patronymic or surname/farm name, indicates that the information is not given in the original, but included by the registrator on the basis of other information given in the source, like in the example below. Martha is not mentioned by surname, but she is the wife of Torkel Sjursen Opstvedt, and the Opstvedt* name is added to Matha's information. Sjur is noted as son, so the patronymic should be Thorkelsen*, and surname Opstvedt*:

Ref	Name	Patronymic	Farm/surname	Age	Sex	Status
1	Torkel	Sjursen	Opstvedt	44	m
2	Martha	Johannesdatter	Opstvedt*	39	f	wife
3	Sjur	Torkelsen*	Opstvedt*	8-½	m	son

This last little section is a bonus for those reading the article to the end. It is a list of nicknames used by criminals in Christiania (now Oslo) in 1874. Trond Austheim found it in Morgenbladet while searching for emigrant ships. It is quite interesting, the names are from a court hearing. I will do my best to translate the names to English, but will not guaranty that I get them all right.

Morgenbladet January 19th, 1874; (Nicknames in Christiania.) When reading through a court process from Christiania, one will, in particular when it concerns the town's regular criminals, see that just about every one of them are know by nicknames, and will always be addressed by his mates by that name, as their legal name almost never are used. These nicknames does of corse have their origin from some kind of characteristic with the person, of from a event involving the person. One will from many of the names see that the ingenuity is great. Below is a selection of 100 Christiania nicknames, almost all of males, except for the few last ones. The whale, the corp (crow/raven), the Old, the Falcon, Fatty, Swede, Triple, the Otter, the Ass, Fret-Svend, the Candidate, the Flea, Sweet-soup, Tramper?, the Bank, Nixie, Broom, Wood-Cat, the King, ?, Shorty, Stocks, Crooked, the Lion, Easy, Garibaldi, Scamp, Mad?, Clumsy, ?, ?buck, the Calf, ?, Lazy, Cheeky, Sooty, Brother-in-law, ?, Seven mark and one, the Kid, the Lamb, the Cub, Cat-owl, Nonsense, the Fizzler, ?, the Toad, the Chunk, Coffee-sack, Coffee-cnob, Nothing, the Grouse, Ginger, the Bag, Straight, Wally, Valdeser, the Troll, Minced fat, the Christian, Bent, ?, Sinny, Crow, Nail, Dive-keeper, Code, Spout, the Baker, Egg-nincompoop, the Taste, Pig's totter, Boar, Shrimp, Stuffing?, Doll, ?, Flie-Pedersen, Matches, the Painter, the Smith, Whimpy, the Wizard, Sea Scorpion, Budd, Birch, Manikin, - Pepita, Entangle, Chop, Death.