Deilur um ættarnöfn hafa staðið nær sleitulaust á Íslandi frá því um miðja 19. öld. Alþingi hefur þar látið til sín taka en löggjöfin fær þó lítt við tunguna ráðið. Eftir því sem samband þjóðarinnar við útlönd varð nánara og innflytjendum fjölgaði hér á landi, urðu þær raddir háværari sem vildu fylgja þeim sið að kenna fólk til ættar. Deilurnar urðu á stundum harðvítugar og þung orð voru iðulega látin falla, jafnvel í anda kynþáttahyggju. Sumir töldu það einstæðan íslenskan þjóðararf að kenna barn til föður eða móður og kölluðu ættarnöfnin erlenda sníkjumenningu sem græfi undan íslensku máli.
Að mati annarra var hinn forni föðurnafnasiður dæmi um íhaldssemi og fornaldardýrkun og þær raddir heyrðust sem töldu ættarnafnasiðinn þess einan megnugan að færa Íslendingum virðingu annarra þjóða enda bryti bann við ættarnöfnum gegn frelsi einstaklingsins.
Hér fjallar Páll Björnsson sagnfræðingur um þessar deilur. Hann tengir þær sögulegri þróun, svo sem myndun þéttbýlis og uppgangi þjóðernishreyfinga fyrr á tímum, og hugar að ólíkum áhrifaþáttum svo sem hernámi Íslands á styrjaldarárunum og hvernig raddir kvenna urðu smám saman að áhrifaafli í þessum deilum. Loks spyr höfundur áleitinna spurninga um hugtakið ætt, hverju sé fórnað í því safni margra ætta og ættboga sem standa að baki hverjum einstaklingi þegar ættarnafn er tekið upp.
Inngangur
I. 1850–1913
Ættarnöfn umdeild
II. 1913–1925
Ættarnöfn heimil
III. 1925–2020
Ættarnöfn bönnuð
IV. 1850–2020
Ættarnöfn (í)mynduð
Niðurstöður
Eftirmáli
Summary
Viðaukar I–XV
Myndaskrá
Heimildaskrá
Nöfn og efnisorð
Páll Björnsson fæddist í Reykjavík árið 1961. Hann nam sagnfræði við Háskóla Íslands og háskólana í Göttingen og Freiburg í Þýskalandi, en lauk síðan doktorsprófi frá Rochester-háskóla í Bandaríkjunum. Hann hefur einkum fengist við rannsóknir á þáttum sem tengjast nútímasamfélagi á 19. og 20. öld, til dæmis þjóðerniskennd, líberalisma og viðhorfum til kynjanna. Eftir hann liggja fjölmargar greinar í tímaritum og bókum. Bók hans Jón forseti allur? Táknmyndir þjóðhetju frá andláti til samtíðar vann til Íslensku bókmenntaverðlaunanna árið 2011. Páll var formaður Sagnfræðingafélags Íslands 2000-2004, annar tveggja ritstjóra tímaritsins Sögu 2003-2008, og hefur einnig starfað innan ReykjavíkurAkademíunnar. Hann er nú prófessor í nútímafræði við Háskólann á Akureyri.
Family Names in Iceland
Conflicts over national heritage and identity
This study investigates the debates over family names and family name legislation in Iceland that have been ongoing since the mid-19th century, when the use of surnames slowly but steadily increased. The adoption of family names was mainly by Icelanders who hadlived overseas, particularly in Copenhagen, Iceland’s capital until 1918; while abroad, Icelanders became acquainted with the family name tradition, legalised in Denmark in 1828. Due to Iceland’s special position within the Danish Empire, these laws did not automatically apply to Icelanders. In the other Nordic nations, however, the authorities more often than not legally required their citizens to adopt family names in the place of surnames derived from their father’s or mother’s first name. Despite the increase in family names, by around 1900 the overwhelming majority of Icelanders still followed the patronymic tradition, wherein a man’s last name is formed by adding the suffix son to his father’s name in the genitive case, and a woman’s last name is formed in the same way with the suffix dóttir.
The ongoing naming dispute is intertwined with various historical developments in Iceland, including the formation of urban centres, which did not truly begin until the second half of the 19th century. These developments also include changes to Iceland’s position with regard to the Danish Empire with the introduction of constitutional relations in the early 20th century, unfolding in three stages: home rule in 1904, sovereignty in 1918, and finally the establishment of the Republic of Iceland in 1944. Other notable developments influenced the course of events, including the British occupation and U.S. military protection during World War II, as well as the significant increase in immigration in recent decades.
The family name debate transpired in various parts of the public sphere, including in the Icelandic parliament, or Althing. Yet an even more important medium for the debate was newspapers and magazines, and a systematic search through periodicals yielded several thousand pages of sources for this study. These documents offer deeper insight into the dispute than discussions in the Althing; they also comprise a diversity of views and are more personal. Additionally, newspapers contain sources that were originally oral, such as transcripts of speeches and lectures. From the 20th century onwards, participants in the name debate have been notably vituperative, whether arguing for or against family names.
In 1913, the Althing approved the voluntary adoption of family names, marking the first comprehensive legislation on names in Iceland. However, in 1925, the parliament banned the adoption of new surnames, while still permitting those who had taken family names prior to 1913 to continue using them and to pass them to their male descendants. Others were supposed to give up their family names, although this decision was not enforced. Indeed, the law did not treat citizens equally, a concern that has since been used as an argument in favour of new family names; such discrimination seems to have been a prerequisite for the enactment of the ban. This aspect possibly undermined the ban by increasing the demand for surnames. Attempts to change the legislation through government bills allowing the reintroduction of new family names failed in 1955 and again in 1971. With a new law in 1996, however, restrictions were relaxed slightly by permitting the use of so-called middle names that were considered equivalent to family names. Bills introduced in parliament in recent years are all characterised by efforts to allow the adoption of new family names.
The controversy over whether family names should be allowed in Iceland has undoubtedly been shaped by efforts to create a collective memory. Icelanders would either unite in preserving the northern European naming tradition and simultaneously the nation’s own language, thus making the country unique and further distinguishing Iceland’s culture from those of neighbouring countries; or, they would adopt surnames in the manner of neighbouring nations, embracing modernity and leaving behind the trappings of the old society. Icelanders wanted to avoid a reputation as savages or “white Eskimos”, a nation without civilization. Proponents of family names further argued that the freedom to adopt a surname was a natural part of everyone’s right to self-determination. At the same time, the view that all citizens should be obliged to adopt a family name, as was the case in neighbouring countries, was rarely heard.
Regardless of their stance, those who have participated in the discourse on naming conventions in Iceland are clearly united by their belief in the importance of four basic themes: national identity, cultural heritage, individual freedom, and the idea that Iceland is on equal footing with “educated” and “civilised” nations and should enjoy recognition as such. Conflict is also apparent between those who regard names to be an entirely private affair and, on the other hand, those who believe the government has not only the right to impose rules on naming but also the duty to protect the Icelandic language—the latter point in view of the widespread belief that the nation’s independence originally rested on its language. Family names were considered a threat to the Icelandic language, especially with regard to its grammatical inflectional system.
To understand the 1925 ban on family names, one must look first and foremost at the political nationalism that gained traction in Iceland in the early 20th century in the wake of new democratic mass movements fighting first for the nation’s independence and then its preservation. It should also be noted that demands for relaxed restrictions on the use of family names in recent decades are most likely related to an increase in globalisation, an important manifestation of which is the growing number of immigrants in Iceland.
In the second half of the 20th century, the names of naturalised Icelandic citizens became a political bone of contention. In the mid-century, new citizens were legally obliged to change both their first and last names, and were considered to fall under the jurisdiction of the naming laws of 1925. After a world-famous musician applied for Icelandic citizenship in the early 1970s, the government decided to grant an exemption to the rule and was thus forced to relax its requirements. As a result, new citizens were allowed to keep their names, and this has since contributed to the increase in surnames in Iceland. It is interesting to note that while the Names Act of 1925 was not enforced against Icelanders who were already in possession of family names, for a twenty-year period naturalised Icelandic citizens were forced to adopt Icelandic first names as well as patronymics.
The conflict over family names also concerned first names. In the first decades of the 20th century, Icelanders were in some cases alphabetised by their surnames—for example, in tax registers, telephone books and library catalogues—as is the case in most countries. However, opponents of family names insisted that people be listed by their given or baptismal names first, a battle that was eventually won. The baptismal name thus became a national emblem of sorts, a new symbol in the effort to strengthen and maintain Icelandic national identity. This is one of the unexpected results brought to light by this study of the debate over family names in Iceland.
The history of the naming dispute is largely the story of men with opposing views: men spoke the most and had the last word. There were, of course, exceptions throughout the 20th century, and over time women began to be more involved in the debates over family names. In the 1970s, an emergent group of radical feminists known as the Red Stockings demanded, among other things, equal rights with men as far as naming legislation was concerned. Various women in the Althing, including members of the Women’s Alliance, took the baton by the end of the century. Over time, the legal framework for names became more egalitarian. By the early 20th century, the use of matronymics—surnames based on the first name of one’s mother— had all but vanished, but in the 1970s, the practice began to take hold once more. The Names Act of 1991 allowed family names to be inherited matrilineally, and the Names Act of 1996 further permitted the use of both matronymics and patronymics.
Proponents of gender equality in the 20th century also pointed out that with the family name tradition, women disappear into the patrilineage: the use of a single surname obscures the majority of a person’s foremothers and forefathers. Gradual advancements towards gender equality from the mid-19th century to the present have endeavoured to complicate this picture. This research reveals that the tendency to view individuals as the products of a single lineage is still widespread: people are assumed to have one ancestral line, culturally and socially. An individual’s choice of a particular family name, on the other hand, is closely related to their efforts to create their own identity, to define themselves. Just as some scholars have referred to nations as “imagined communities”, surnames form imagined communities in a similar way.
Examining the status of those who contributed to the name debates, it becomes clear that participants included individuals at the forefront of politics and cultural life. Particularly in the interwar period, various opponents of family names on the political left began to use the naming controversy for political purposes—for example, by accusing their adversaries of a lack of national allegiance or implying their foreign ancestry. In general public discourse, family names were often considered a sort of uniform for those with power.
Beginning in the mid-19th century, Iceland started the transformation from a rural society into a modern one, and the history of the family name dispute reflects this modernisation. The fact that Iceland was predominantly rural until the 20th century is fundamental in this context because in continental Europe, family names first took root in urban centres and spread from there. Iceland’s late urbanisation is a key aspect of this history since Romantic nationalism, which emphasised local culture and language, was well established before urban centres began to emerge and thus before family names had gained a foothold in Iceland. In the neighbouring countries, the opposite was true: since urbanisation was well underway prior to the advent of nationalism, family names managed to establish themselves before the effects of the new ideology could manifest.
In sum, alongside the growth of national consciousness, opponents of family names began to see patronymics as emblematic of the uniqueness of Icelandic culture, the uniqueness of Icelanders. The patronymic tradition was one of the arguments used in the struggle for Icelanders’ cultural and later constitutional independence. While those who argued against surnames considered opposition to them necessary because their usage was a foreign custom, proponents pointed out that the patronymic tradition was not of Icelandic origin either. Furthermore, they argued, only the family name tradition would contribute to a strong national identity, earning Icelanders the respect of others and ensuring their status as a nation among nations. Opponents of family names argued the opposite, that only the preservation of patronymics would earn foreigners’ respect. The debate that ensued clearly demonstrates the complications of the effort to link the patronymic tradition to Icelandic national heritage.
Keywords: patronymic tradition, family name tradition, nationalism, national heritage, modernisation, identity
