-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Icelandic last names, and old Norse last names in general, change, algorithimically, every generation. Your "last" name, if male, is your father's first name with "son" after it. If you're female it's your mother's first name, with, I believe "dottir" (daughter) after it. So, if your parents are Eric (say :-)), and, um, Helga, and you're male and your name is Lief, your name would be (oddly enough) Lief Ericsson. If you're female, and your name is, oh, Greta, (I don't know many female Norse names, and that's probably not one, Miss Garbo to the contrary) then your name would be Greta Helgasdottir, or something like that. Icelanders on the list will correct the specifics, of course. The price of error is bandwidth, and all that, but you get the idea. So, no matter who your are, if you're to become an Icelandic citizen, your last name changes. Mine, since my family's Fresian, would change from "Hettinga" ("guy who lives on a hill", which almost everyone did, or they lived in a swamp :-)), to "Ralphson", which, fortunately, is almost passable Icelandic. Actually, Frisians, the bad guys in Beowulf, could almost pass for Norse in general, as anyone who's met me might testify. Think of it as an anonymous renamer? :-). Cheers, Robert Hettinga -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.5.5 iQEVAwUBNoxD0MUCGwxmWcHhAQG3SQf/dpUEFsoxvfkwROqxnig9qR7+k73AFTR+ 8pXtRfxwUjpDjO72xmHOUerC9xdHBjG2pYJKcsuq13iq+DNlYRTuOIBvWf4EJd0d G82aTtlAvS5KwmTGyTzJPepVlXuaX+Aimb3aBEUYwZrssLbaCAMgtv+GEf6f1URy vifxjZHYa/+2Vi/VOQzLIuzpBjs2NFmSgU4vqdz6hKBPM7KHQiedIcvC/aUxonLH wqNqOtQJuwwuPUcxJElh1rj+9xlhqT2DiLQe3cq3p/JYCr3NR3seqk6OqNs4pCVp 5aww4TaiEvGips+rFvPcQPLHDdfTY+z8fw39m9s2rGlJ4I7LYu570w== =M3Rr -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'