Re: OT: Anthroponymics

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, caeruleancentaur
<caeruleancentaur@Y...> wrote:
>
> I remember reading somewhere that Norway recently adopted a law
> restricting the first names parents could use in naming their
children
> so as to avoid inappropriate names.  Do I remember correctly?
>
> Charlie
My first wife was named Ohsfeldt.

The first Ohsfeldt was a Swedish railway worker named Gustav E.
Ohsfeldt.

Before he was named Ohsfeldt, he was named Gustav E. Andersen.

He was one of five men all named Gustav E. Andersen and all working for
the same railroad.

Because of confusion of names, there was a railroad-accident.

The railroad company held a lottery among the Gustav E. Andersens.  The
winner got to stay named Andersen; all four of the losers had to choose
different surnames; different from each other, and different from any
surname of any other Gustav working on the railroad.

Her ancestors was one of the losers; he made up the name Ohsfeldt,
which until then had not been used as a surname in Sweden.

-----

I have read that duplication of names is so common in some Scandinavian
country, that telephone directories routinely list occupations along
with names, to help users know whether or not they are calling the
correct person.

I have also read that one such Scandinavian telephone company, used a
computer program to combine common surname-beginnings with common
surname-endings, to come up with new surnames that sounded reasonably,
generically "like" existing surnames, and then offered bonuses to
subscribers with too-common actual surnames, as an incentive to change
their surname to one of the new ones.

Given my ex-wife's family's history, I do not find either of those
factoids at all implausible; but I have no way of knowing whether or
not either of them is true.

----------

Tom H.C. in MI

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