More about the name thing

So. Friday’s post about the Name Committee and all that. Robert had a few thoughtful questions which I have decided to address here, to wit:

“So does your child have to remain somewhat 'nameless' during this whole process ? Do you call them by the proposed name anyway, and then if it gets rejected have to call them something else ? What happens to poor unfortunates who become Icelandic citizens but were born elsewhere ? Do they have to change their name to one on the approved list ?”

SHALL YOUR CHILD REMAIN NAMELESS…?
A perfectly good question, and one that calls for the revelation of yet another Icelandic quirk. Namely this: when a child is born, the proposed name of that child remains a Secret. Only the parents know the name they plan to give their child. [And possibly, perhaps, someone Very Close to the child, let’s say a grandparent. But even that’s rare.] It’s not even considered couth to ask the parents what the child’s name is going to be. All is finally revealed at the Christening, which usually takes place a couple – or more – months after the birth.

Until that time, the young child is simply known by some cutesie name the family decides to give him or her. I suppose an English equivalent could be ‘little one’ or ‘squirt’ or ‘the little prince’ or whatever. Formally, like in the hospital, the child would be known as simply ‘drengur’ [boy] or ‘stúlka’ [girl] and then the last name [which if you still remember your previous lesson, children, will almost always consist of a patronym, say ‘Jónsson’ or ‘Jónsdóttir’].

So again, nobody knows the name of the child until they show up at the Christening, and the minister says, ‘What is to be the child’s name?’ And the parents say: ‘Karlotta Jósefína Eleonora’, or similar. Which by then they've already had passed by the Name Committee.

... AND THY FOREIGN NAME SHALL BECOME NATIVE
Good question about the foreigners, too. Because it may shock you to learn that until very recently – a few years ago – foreigners who took Icelandic citizenship were legally obligated to take an Icelandic name. Granted, you were allowed to add a name somewhere in the middle, e.g. ‘Walter Haraldur Winterbottom’, but you did have to take one. For some bizarre reason.

With more and more people moving here from abroad, this tradition was increasingly criticised. There was one famous case of a Columbian guy who was completely indignant about this, and eventually changed his name to Elífur Friður – both bona fide Icelandic names, but which when put together mean ‘Eternal Peace’. He sort of became a liberation hero in the no-Icelandic-names crusade, and shortly after his well-publicized protest, it was decided to abolish this ridiculous requrement. Eilífur Friður, however, as far as I know, is still around and living happily in Iceland under his assumed alias.

SO – WHAT ABOUT THIS RIDICULOUS WEATHER TRADITION?
Yes well. I have to do something for the people who come here via google searches looking for ‘iceland weather’ do I not? [Incidentally, if anyone could tell me what ‘underweather’ means, please do, because I get oodles of google searches coming through on that search word. And I have no idea what ‘underweather’ is – except a rather flippant title on one of my blog posts many moons ago. But I digress.] It was lovely earlier, sunny, if a little chilly. This evening, though, it turned windy and downright cold so when AAH and YT headed out to the video store we froze our little buns off. [Rented Garden State – what a gem!] Temps currently zero degrees Centigrade [unsurprising, considering it’s the middle of the night in October just below the Arctic circle]. This morning I drove AAH to work at the bakery just before 7am and it was Very Dark. Whereas two weeks ago when I did the same thing it was still light at that time of the morning [just as all the party fools are heading home from the bars]. That can only mean one thing – heading into the Heart of Darkness at an alarming rate now. Sunrise today [Sunday] will be at 8am sharp and sunset at 18.29.