Ancestry Magazine

An introduction to the method behind the seeming madness of patronymics.

Patronymics. It’s the kind of word that makes people flinch—particularly people trying to trace their Scandinavian family roots. Some people don’t know what patronymics are, others have a vague idea, and a few think they have the system down. But even those few may misunderstand what patronymics are really all about.

Background
If it were possible to trace your European ancestors back to before church records existed, you would probably find that many of them used patronymic names. Strictly speaking, a patronymic name is simply a name derived from the name of one’s father.
Although we tend to associate patronymics with Scandinavia, the influence of the system extended well beyond that area.

Throughout much of Western and Eastern Europe and other places around the world, many of the earliest surnames were patronymic. Patronymics died out, often replaced by family surnames hundreds of years ago in many places. But in some areas, such as the Scandinavian countries, patronymics survived in dwindling numbers into the 1900s.

A Formula
Although patronymics can seem mysterious at first, the names actually followed a defined set of simple rules. A formula can illustrate how the system worked—particularly in many Western European countries.

Most patronymic names are composed of two parts. The first part comes from the first name of the child’s father. The second part is a suffix, which is often the word for son or daughter in that particular language. So, the formula might look like this:

Name of the father (sometimes with an extra “s”) + suffix/word indicating gender of the child (form of son or daughter)

Here’s an example: If a child named Mark is born to a father named Greg Smith in the U.S., under the patronymic system his name would be Mark Gregson—meaning Mark, the son of Greg.

Similarly, if a child named Lisbeth is born to a father named Marten Nilsson in Sweden, her name would be Lisbeth Martensdotter (dotter is a female Swedish suffix). Notice there’s no mention of Marten’s surname, Nilsson.

One more—if a child named Abel is born to a father named Simon Bakker in the Netherlands, what would the child’s patronymic name be? Knowing that zoon means son in Dutch, the child’s name would be Abel Simonszoon.

And the most important and often confusing point? The last names of a child’s parents are completely irrelevant to the child’s name in patronymics.

Exceptions
But then there are the exceptions. Here are a few to keep in mind.

In a few areas such as Ireland and Scotland, prefixes such as “Mc” and “Mac” were added instead of suffixes to form the patronymic (“O” was added to form a patronymic with the grandfather).

Another variation on the suffix formula was used in Jewish patronymics, which added bat or ben between the child’s given name and the father’s name. In Eastern European countries, a variety of suffixes like “wicz,” “vich,” and “vic” were added to form the patronymic. Romanians used “escu” and “eanu.” Poles added “ski” and “ska.”

Some patronymic names, usually from very early time periods, are based on the name of the clan or previous ancestors instead of the father. Finally, on occasion a patronymic name will even omit the word for son or daughter and simply use the father’s given name as the surname.

Challenges
Researching ancestors with patronymic names brings the following unique set of challenges:

Challenge #1. Since every generation of the family had a different last name, you must move carefully generation by generation in your search. The last name of a child may indicate nothing about his or her grandparents’ names.

Challenge #2. Our ancestors often had a handful of names they really liked. Since both first and last names are based on these favorite names, you get a lot of people with the same name. It isn’t unusual to find half a dozen Nils Nilssons in a Swedish village with no relation to each other. They just all happened to have fathers named Nils.

Challenge #3. Sometimes patronymics were used in combination with other names. You might find ancestors with a patronymic name and a family surname or other type of name (such as a farm- or occupation-based named). They could have used both or either at any given time.

Challenge #4. Tracing immigrant ancestors also brings up some problems. People with patronymic names often changed their names soon after arriving in the United States. This was partly due to the commonness of the names and partly to blend in with American society. Many immigrants also translated their names into English. A Finnish name that ended in poika (Finnish for “son”) may have ended in “son” in the United States.

Leslie Albrecht Huber is a freelance writer based in Valencia, Spain. She can be reached at lahuber@hotmail.com.