Page 20 - Family History

Miscellaneous

Patronymic Names

Throughout Scandinavia, family names are seldom used by common people. It
was when new laws regarding family names were introduced in the late 19th

century that this became common. Before that, most people had only
patronymic names, which means that they got their fathers first name, with an
ending as surname.

Examples from a Danish family:

gggggfather named: Christian JACOBSEN
Christian's son was named: Jorgen Niels CHRISTENSEN
Jorgen's son was named: Hans JORGENSEN
Hans' son was named: Jens HANSEN
At this point they emigrate to America where this tradition is no longer

continued …
Grandfather was named: Isaac Peterson (mother's maiden name)
HANSEN - otherwise he would have been: Isaac JENSSEN (son of Jens).

Confused yet? If you are doing research on Danish ancestors, you will be.

If a town had too many people with the same name, the occupation or the place of
residence was also used as the last name. Examples: Paaske, Munch, Kudsk
and others.

As for the girls they would get the father's first name + "datter" (meaning
daughter of). So if Jens HANSEN had a daughter named Kirsten, she will be

known as Kirsten JENSDATTER. Another example: a gggrandmother whose
name was Maren Kirstine PEDERSDATTER [MUNCH], whose father was Peder
LARSEN. I guess there were too many Maren Kirstine PEDERSDATTERS and
apparently they lived in MUNCH.

In Norway and Denmark, -sen is the same as -son, and -datter is the same as –
dotter. When the new laws were introduced, many people took their patronymics
as family names, hence all the "Jensen", "Hansen", "Johansson" and "Andersson"

names.

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