MacTire02

 

:In Icelandic the first name is the name given to the person in all cases including alphabetisation. There is no such thing as a surname in Icelandic per se, rather the person takes the name of their father. To categorise a person by their English-understood (or French-, Irish- etc.) surname is considered derogatory in Icelandic. For example, if you were to meet Ásta Ragnheiður Jóhannesdóttir (member of the Althing) you would be expected to call her Ásta and not, for example, Mrs. Jóhannesdóttir etc. (which itself doesn't make sense as it would mean Wife of the daughter of Jóhann). On the English Wikipedia it is customary also to categorise people by "LASTNAME, FIRSTNAME" but Icelanders are an exception being categorised "FIRSTNAME LASTNAME". See [[:en:Category:Members of the Althing]] for an example of this. [[Úsáideoir:MacTire02|MacTire02]] 10:50, 4 Feabhra 2009 (UTC)