Name heritage – New trends in Nordic Socio-onomastics

by Peder Gammeltoft

Names carry profound meaning, serving as personal identifiers while also reflecting broader cultural, familial, and societal influences. Data from the Danish Link-Lives project, offers a unique opportunity to explore how personal names reveal patterns of migration, identity, and cultural adaptation. The census includes families that migrated to Argentina, had children born there, and later returned to Denmark, reflecting a rich story of transatlantic movement. The analysis of these names offers insights into how families navigated between Danish and Argentine cultures, particularly through the naming of their children.

Personal Names and Migration: What’s in a Name?

Migration is not just about moving from one country to another – It involves the transfer and negotiation of identities, traditions, and cultural norms. Personal names are a powerful reflection of this process, capable of signaling an individual’s cultural roots, religious beliefs, or even social aspirations. In the case of Danish families who moved to Argentina and then re-immigrated to Denmark, the naming of children born in Argentina can tell us a great deal about how these families balanced their Danish heritage with the new cultural environment they encountered in Argentina.

The Link-Lives Project, is part of a broader effort to link historical records of individuals across generations, including censuses, church records, and civil registries. The project’s aim is to create a connected and accessible database for researching personal histories. The 1901 census in the Link-Lives project includes 17 households, each containing a mix of children born in Denmark and Argentina. Among these families, there are 41 children, 29 of whom were born in Argentina and 12 in Denmark. By analyzing the first names of these children, we gain insight into how these families navigated their cultural identities, particularly in relation to their stay in a part of the Spanish-speaking world, Argentina. Although the material is small, there are clear tendencies.

A Closer Look at Family Composition

A breakdown of the families included in the dataset, showing how many children were born in Denmark versus Argentina:

Table 1: A snapshot of family structure and migration patterns. Many families had at least one child born in Argentina before re-immigrating to Denmark.

Cultural Identity Through Personal Names

The study of names in this dataset reveals three distinct categories based on how well a child’s name would fit into a Spanish-speaking country like Argentina. These categories – formally usable, possibly usable, and not usable – help us understand how families integrated (or resisted integration) into Argentine society through the naming of their children.

Formally Usable in a Spanish-speaking Context: Names that would easily be recognized in Argentina, either because they are common in both cultures, or have Spanish equivalents.
– For instance, among the children born in Argentina, names like Elena, Eleonora, Oskar (Oscar), Pedro, and Enrique would have been very familiar in both Argentina and Denmark. Of the 29 children born in Argentina, 9 had names that fall into this category. These names reflect a potential desire for integration into the local culture, possibly making it easier for children to fit into Argentine society.
Possibly Usable in a Spanish-speaking Context: These names are less common but still recognizable in Argentina.
– Names such as Christian, Ingrid and Peter are familiar but less frequent in a Spanish-speaking context. Nine of the Argentine-born children had names in this category. These names suggest that the family retained a connection to Danish traditions while also choosing names that would not be entirely out of place in their new environment.
Not Usable in a Spanish-speaking Context: Names that are Danish and would likely have stood out in Argentina.
– Examples include Arne, Inger and Valdemar, which are typically Danish and would be unusual in a Spanish-speaking country. Eleven Argentine-born children had names in this category. These names likely reflect a stronger attachment to Danish identity, suggesting that the family wanted to maintain their cultural roots despite living abroad.

Dataset Breakdown: Children’s Names by Birth Country

Let us look at children’s first forenames, birth countries, and whether their first forename would work in either a Spanish-speaking or Danish-speaking context:

Table 2: A detailed look at how children’s names correspond to their cultural environment in an Argentinian, illustrating the variety of naming strategies employed by Danish families in Argentina.

Table 3: A detailed look at how children’s names correspond to their cultural environment in a Danish context, illustrating naming strategies employed by Danish families having returned from Argentina.

Conclusion: The Significance of Name Research in Migration Studies

The study of personal names within the context of migration provides a unique lens through which to explore cultural identity. For families that migrated to Argentina, naming their children involved a balance between maintaining their Danish heritage and integrating into Argentine society. Children with names like Elena or Pedro may have been better able to navigate both cultural worlds, while those with distinctly Danish names may have faced greater challenges in fitting in.

For the children born in Denmark after their families’ return, the predominance of traditional Danish names suggests a desire to reclaim or reinforce their Danish identity. These children would grow up in Denmark, and their names reflect a re-rooting in their home country’s cultural norms. The choice of names illustrates how these families viewed their identity – both abroad and at home.

Literature

Hornby, Rikard, 1978. Danske personnavne. København.
Link-Lives: https://link-lives.dk/
María Bjerg, 2019. Brudte bånd. Immigration, ægteskab og følelser i Argentina mellem det 19. og 20. århundrede. Bernal.
Meldgaard, Eva Villarsen, 2002. Den store navnebog. København.
Tibón, Gutierre, 2002. Diccionario etimológico comparado de nombres propios de persona. Mexico City.

by Sofia Kotilainen

In 19–23 August 2024 I had a privilege to participate the 28th International Congress of Onomastic Sciences in Helsinki. It was inspiring to hear and see so many great presentations of colleagues. They introduced plenty of new perspectives to onomastic research.

Theme of the multidisciplinary conference was Sustainability in names, naming and onomastics. I have studied the history of inherited first names in the Finnish rural families. Recently, I have started to conceptualize these findings and results of my earlier research. Using the concept of onomastic literacy has proved to be fruitful in reaching the mentalities of the people and local communities studied.

Onomastic literacy means the knowledge and skills the parents of a child need to interpret the local naming culture and communal norms of naming. Parents had to be familiar with the traditions of the family and the locality to be able to choose a ‘suitable’ name. In this respect, names functioned as cultural symbols connected with identities and kin networks.

Honouring the ancestors

Universally, the most common social norm governing the choice of names has consisted in giving a baby a name handed down within the family, mainly the name of a grandparent. Giving the name of a living relative would have detracted from this person’s good fortune as it correspondingly added to that of the younger namesake. And especially in the case of grandparents, it may have been thought that the blessing and luck received by the oldest members of the family would in this way be transferred to the newborn baby. For example, in Finland in the olden days, it was said that a child would turn out like his or her namesake.

There would seem to have been many kinds of religious and social functions attached to the choice of names of ancestors besides honouring them. For example, namesakes might have been thought to hold certain responsibilities towards each other when both, for example a grandparent and a grandchild, lived in a certain community at the same time. It was perhaps possible to perceive in the child family traits or a resemblance to a forebear, after whom the parents then might wish to name him or her. Behind this way of thinking can be perceived an ancient Finno-Ugric belief about the soul, according to which a child who receives an ancestor’s name also inherits his or her persona or soul.

This then was the case when a child was named after a dead relative. The child was in this way symbolically connected to the earlier bearer of the name. It was believed that when for example the first-born boy in the family was given his grandfather’s name, the latter would in some way continue his life in the new member of the family. Even though the belief had spread into Scandinavia in the pre-Christian era, it continued to exert an influence later. It has been assumed in earlier research that in Finland, too, the relics of such naming traditions can be perceived right up to the twentieth century.

Inherited first names in the Finnish rural families

The above-mentioned conceptions of the early modern beliefs and mentalities that regulated naming, were based on oral memory accounts that were mainly used as a source in ethnological research rather than on the systematic empirical use of written documents as sources of historical research. However, with the help of extensive collective biographical databases, for example, and by utilizing the genealogical method, it is possible to examine to what extent traditional beliefs any longer influenced naming practices from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries and were realized in it in practice.

In all ages an inherited family name has played an important part in the shaping of a person’s identity. Particularly in the pre-modern age, a personal name also made rural people a part of a family community and defined their place in it. In the agrarian society of former times, the traditions of the family were respected. The networks between relatives also formed an economic and social safety net on which a person could rely. Inherited names were also associated with a feeling of the continuity of the family and traditions. That is why it was important to name a child after his or her grandparents or parents because in the name-givers’ world view it bound a child and his or her future into the enduring immaterial heritage of the family.

The practices of naming did not change sharply in the shift from the early modern to the modern period, and many interacting cultural layers from different periods continued to influence naming practices in an essential way. The relics of ancient practices and beliefs were preserved to some extent right up to the twentieth century. A more exact analysis of local naming practices using a variety of document sources and collective biographical databases shows that, regarding inherited names at least, the modernization of naming practices took place slowly. They were affected not only by the local living conditions of the community but also by the complex and asynchronous effects of the modernization of society.

Recycling the names

Family traditions, being grandmother’s or grandfather’s namesake, or having name of a valued member of the family community, were signs that name-givers, i.e. usually parents of the children being culturally ‘literate’ and honouring the elder generations in Finnish rural local communities. This created sustainability and good reputation of the first names of the forefathers and -mothers, as they were inherited from generation to generation.

Onomastic sustainability has been important for the development of social traditions, values, identities and intergenerational relations. Local naming traditions change slowly and may influence naming practices of several generations. Active reusing the names keeps the cultural heritage alive.

Category: Name heritage

Cultural Identity Through Personal Names: Insights from the Danish-Argentine Migration