snorrason

This is a question I get all the time, here’s how it works:

My first name is Snorri, my last name is Sturluson, my fathers last name is Þengilsson, my sisters last name is Sturludóttir, my sons last name is Snorrason, because I´m Snorri and he´s my son: Snorrason (I know, the i in my name changes to an a, grammar, to complicated to explain here).

So that´s how the naming conventions in the Icelandic language work, family names that get inherited from father to children are rare, not unknown but rare, my mom has one, she´s a Norðdahl. If I have a son (as I just did, with the help of my wife) he gets my first name+son (with the i changing to a) and if I were to have a daughter she would get my last name + dóttir (means daughter, and the same i to a business).

Now the next question I usually get is:
So how do people know who´s in what family since there´s no family name to show the lineage?

Well . . . you just keep track of it, you´re not going to have that many kids are you?, in Iceland everyone is everyone´s cousin anyway (not like in Virginia though). Not to mention that there´s no guarantee that a John Murphy in Chicago is in any way related to a John Murphy in Boston . . .