{"id":1528,"date":"2017-04-21T22:05:41","date_gmt":"2017-04-21T22:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/?p=1528"},"modified":"2017-04-22T06:20:40","modified_gmt":"2017-04-22T06:20:40","slug":"your-name-is-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/2017\/04\/21\/your-name-is-what\/","title":{"rendered":"Your name is what?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

One of the most popular names in Denmark. (Photo courtesy of emma.buckley at Flickr<\/a>, CC License.)<\/p><\/div>\n

Hvad hedder du? <\/b>(What\u2019s your name?) Jeg hedder\u2026<\/b> Talking about navn\/e<\/b> (name\/s) is important when making new friends. Let\u2019s look at Danish naming traditions!<\/p>\n

H.C. Andersen<\/b> is probably the most famous dansker <\/b>(Dane) of all time\u2026 Like all danskere<\/b>, he\u2019s got a<\/p>\n

\u2022 fornavn<\/b> [fore-naoon] \u2013 in this case: Hans Christian<\/b> \u2013 and an<\/p>\n

\u2022 efternavn<\/b> [eftor-naoon] \u2013 which of course is: Andersen<\/b><\/p>\n

Please note that double names were much more common when H.C. [haw seh] roamed the streets (19th<\/sup><\/span> century) \u2013 today most Danes are happy to give their child a single, godt udt\u00e6nkt<\/b> (well thought out) navn<\/b> [naoon]! \ud83d\ude42 And as for the famous -sen<\/b> in Andersen <\/b>\u2013 let\u2019s return to that in a second! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Here are the 10 most popular pigenavne<\/b> [peeyeh-naooneh] in 2016: Sofia, Freja, Alma, Laura, Ida, Clara, Ella, Anna, Emma, Josefine<\/b>.<\/p>\n

And the 10 most popular drengenavne<\/b> [drengeh-naooneh]: Noah, Victor, Oliver, Oscar, William, Lucas, Carl, Emil, Malthe, Frederik.<\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"

Famous footballer Peter Schmeichel has a German last name. (Photo courtesy of \u041e\u043b\u0435\u0433 \u0414\u0443\u0431\u0438\u043d\u0430 at Wikimedia Commons<\/a>, CC License.)<\/p><\/div>\n

A fun and exotic thing for foreigners to discover are all the names that were originally used by the Vikings, for example Freja, Nanna, Sif, Thyra, Gudrun, Bodil, Astrid, \u00c5se, Sigrid, Gry<\/b> for women, and Thor, Aske, Eske, Bjarne, Bjarke, Gorm, Erik, Harald, Frithjof, Asbj\u00f8rn<\/b> for men.<\/p>\n

In 2017, choosing a unik<\/b> (unique) name has become like a sport for many parents! \ud83d\ude42 I gamle dage<\/b> (in the [good] old days), when all Danes were offline and most people lived in landsbyer<\/b> (villages), people often took it easier, picking a \u201dclassical\u201d name for their child. Men were typically called things like Per, Peter, Ole, Anders, Hans, Lars, Nils, Knud, Jens, Ib, Bo, Poul, Mads\u2026<\/b> (And women had names like Anne, Marie, Maren, Mette, Karen, Else, Lise, Lis, Lone, Dorthe, Katrine, Trine\u2026<\/b>)<\/p>\n

If you add -sen<\/b> to one of the \u201dclassical\u201d male names, you\u2019ll most probably end up with one of the very typical Danish \u201dsen<\/b>\u201d names: Petersen, Olsen, Andersen, Hansen, Larsen, Nilsen, Knudsen, Jensen, Poulsen, Madsen\u2026 <\/b>\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

You see, originally Danes had no last names\u2026 They only had their personal name, and maybe a kaldenavn<\/b> (nickname) \u2013 think about the king Gorm den Gamle<\/b> (Gorm the Old). If they were in doubt who was who, they would say things like \u201dMarie, Oles datter<\/b>\u201d (Ole\u2019s daughter) or \u201dSvend, Oles s\u00f8n<\/b>\u201d (Ole\u2019s son). At some point in middelalderen<\/b> (the Middle Ages) people started using family names \u2013 that\u2019s really nice if you\u2019re a king and want to check that everyone\u2019s paid their taxes! \ud83d\ude42 So, Oles s\u00f8n<\/b> became Olsen<\/b> \u2013 voila, a readymade family name! (To keep it simple, girls were soon given -sen<\/b> names too, instead of -datter<\/b> names.)<\/p>\n

\"\"

Danish actress and film director\u00a0Paprika Steen has a very original\u00a0name \u2013 it literally means \u201dPaprika Stone\u201d. (Photo courtesy of Petr Nov\u00e1k at Wikimedia Commons<\/a>, CC License.)<\/p><\/div>\n

Adelen<\/b> (the Nobility) and overklassen <\/b>(the upper class) often had fancy German names, and also because of a lot of contact with Germany, modern Danes have last names like Schl\u00fcter<\/b> or Messerschmidt <\/b>or von Trier<\/b>. Other Danes have last names that were probably the name of the place where the original family had their g\u00e5rd<\/b> (farm) \u2013 that\u2019s why you\u2019ve got last names like Laudrup<\/b> or \u00d8rting <\/b>or Kj\u00e6r<\/b>. A few people took the name of their job as a surname \u2013 hence\u00a0B\u00f8dtker\u00a0<\/strong>(\u201dMaker of Barrels\u201d).<\/p>\n

When two people of different sexes\u00a0gifter sig<\/b> (marry) in Denmark, the woman sometimes chooses to take her husband\u2019s last name (that\u2019s how it was done traditionally \u2013 now it can also be the other way around, with the man taking his wife\u2019s name). Some women (and men), though, keep their old family name as a mellemnavn<\/b> (middle name). Some people choose to merge two different family names with a bindestreg<\/b> (hyphen), for example Skovlund-Hansen<\/b>. With many people getting divorced and re-married, and most people being happy with\u00a0their last name and wanting to keep it, it\u2019s no wonder that many Danes have long \u201dcombo\u201d names! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

What is your favourite Danish name?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Hvad hedder du? (What\u2019s your name?) Jeg hedder\u2026 Talking about navn\/e (name\/s) is important when making new friends. Let\u2019s look at Danish naming traditions! H.C. Andersen is probably the most famous dansker (Dane) of all time\u2026 Like all danskere, he\u2019s got a \u2022 fornavn [fore-naoon] \u2013 in this case: Hans Christian \u2013 and an \u2022…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":1531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[913,13],"tags":[473459,473460,27772,935,8426,89914,503098,473458,274839,473456,3508],"class_list":["post-1528","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traditions","category-vocabulary","tag-sen","tag-sen-names","tag-farm","tag-german","tag-germany","tag-h-c-andersen","tag-kaldenavn","tag-middle-ages","tag-name","tag-paprika-steen","tag-vikings"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1528"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1539,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1528\/revisions\/1539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}