How it works
Most Icelandic last names are not family names: a child takes a parent's first name in the genitive plus son or dóttir. Jón's son is Jónsson and his daughter Jónsdóttir. These 199 come from Iceland's most common first names.
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Son, daughter or family name
The dropdown, Ends in, keeps the 100 names in -son, the 99 in -dóttir, or the 46 inherited family names, such as Briem and Thoroddsen, which few Icelanders have.
A father's name or a mother's
Under More filters, Formed from keeps the 111 names built on a father's first name or the 88 built on a mother's, such as Guðrúnarson. Icelandic last names are mostly patronymic and only occasionally matronymic, so a form built on a mother's name may be rare. Genitives come from each name's declension table, never from a rule: Örn gives Arnarson and Hörður gives Harðarson. Guðmundsson and Magnússon are not built on the table's genitive, and their cards say so.
Tips
- A card whose name has Icelandic letters adds a plain spelling: þ as th, ð as d and æ as ae.
- In Starts with, the names that begin with Þ sit under 0 to 9.
Questions and answers
How do Icelandic last names work?
A last name says whose child someone is, not which family they belong to. It is the father's or mother's first name in the genitive plus son or dóttir, so a brother and a sister have different last names.
Is this an Icelandic last name generator?
Yes. Each press deals five last names at random from the list, and the dropdown narrows the draw to sons' names, daughters' names or family names. Every formed name comes from one of Iceland's most common first names.
Do any Icelanders have family names?
Some do. Most are adaptations of last names Icelanders took while living abroad, usually in Denmark. In 1925 the parliament, the Althing, banned the adoption of new family names.
What does -bur mean in an Icelandic last name?
Child of. Since 2019, Icelanders registered as non-binary may use -bur in place of -son or -dóttir. This list forms the -son and -dóttir names only.