Look up a phonebook in Iceland and a surprise awaits you. It is listed in first name order followed by surnames, occupations and addresses.

This makes good sense when you realise that everybody in Iceland is known by his or her first name and nobody uses Mr. or Ms. in any situation. Young children call their teachers and friend’s parents by their first name and Icelanders even reference their president by her first name. Unlike virtually all countries, Icelanders do not have surnames in the traditional sense. A surname in Iceland is simply their father’s name suffixed with either son for boys or dóttir for girls, based on the same patronymic system from the time of the Vikings.

This can be confusing when you consider that it means that a typical family of four will almost certainly have multiple different “surnames”. For example, if Jón Helgason (his father’s name is Helgi) and Margrét Magnúsdóttir (her father’s name is Magnús) have a son, then his surname will be Jónsson while his daughter would take the name Jónsdóttir – four different surnames in the same family!

In a strange way, I believe that this approach to names gives Iceland a greater sense of equality and respect in how they approach their lives with excellent gender and age balances in most walks of Icelandic life.

The well-known eclectic Icelandic singer Björk simply uses her first name as is the Icelandic tradition. According to Wikipedia being the daughter of Guðmundur, her full name is Björk Guðmundsdóttir of which there are a few in the phonebook.

Moreover, when choosing a name for a newly born, the parents must select a name already approved by the Icelandic naming board which would screw up some of those Hollywood types with a penchant for choosing weird names (like Dweezil, Moon Zappa, Diezel and Pilot Inspektor to nominate just a few). New names can be added by special application but they need to be Icelandic in nature.

Similar in motive to the names, a special group designs new Icelandic words to maintain the purity of the language from the Viking age. So rather than take modified English words for modern terms as many languages do (what is the word for computer or television in most languages?), the Icelanders create their own suitable words to maintain their language. So the word for telephone is sími (Viking word for thread) and computer is tölva (by combining Icelandic words for number and soothsayer).

With such a potpourri of surnames, it is little wonder that the Icelandic phone book is sorted by first names. Try the online version in Icelandic or English if you want to test it. Mind you, if the population were 300 million rather than 300,000, I suspect the system may not work as well.

Other Icelandic Posts
Lake of Dancing Icebergs
Astride the Continents
Nature’s Wonderland
Remote Sign

In a country packed with natural travel wonders including thundering waterfalls, freaky rock formations, snaking glaciers and thermal pools, one of the most unusual experiences in Iceland is the glacial lake, Jökulsárlón, full of powder-blue icebergs. From nature’s perspective, this is a recent phenomenon related to the receding glacier with the lake only present for the last seventy-five years.

The smallish icebergs, having split from the front of an arm of Europe’s largest glacier (and one-twelfth of Iceland’s landmass), slowly waltz around the chilly glacial lagoon with the slow deliberate grace of tai chi. The icebergs are too large to enter the river outlet to the ocean. They slowly meander around the lake until the wind and water erodes them to a size where they can finally escape their lagoon prison.

Apart from the peaceful stroll around the lagoon’s shore, a half-hour journey on an amphibian craft weaves up close to the ice show, revealing the unusual formations carved by nature, the varying shades of blue cast in the chunks of ice and the attractive reflections in the brooding waters.

The film-makers love it with the setting being used for a number of features including two James Bond movies – A View to a Kill and Die Another Day.

Enjoy Jökulsárlón, a surreal travel wonder in a sombre atmosphere of gently lapping water, brooding grey clouds and blue-tinged ice giants silently circulating the cold lagoon waters.

Other Iceland Posts
Astride the Continents
Nature's Wonderland
Remote Sign

Iceland is one of the world’s most remarkable countries, full of natural travel wonders and contrasts. In a small area, soaring icy glaciers, spouting geysirs, black lava flows and plunging waterfalls compete and complement to paint an extraordinary landscape. Much of this highly active landscape is due to the gradual parting of two continental plates – where Europe and America truly meet. Most such activity happens deep in the ocean floor, but this continental junction weaves a path through the centre of Iceland, where it is known as the Reykjanes Ridge (or the less interesting Mid-Atlantic Ridge to geologists). It produced the rich Norse legends where the sagas of mighty gods and unearthly powers replace the geological explanations of today.

In the north of Iceland, Mt Krafla has erupted regularly as recently as 1984. A road of black sooty lava replaced the emerald green grasslands that had struggled to grow over the remains of prior eruptions. The tell-tale yellow sulphurous deposits and venting steam (top photo) shows the Earth continues to bubble where the tectonic plates drag apart from each other at two or three centimetres per year.

In places like Krafla where the gap is narrow, you can stand astride the two continents, being careful to avoid the heated fissures.

The world’s first parliament was conducted in Þingvellir (pronounced “Thingvellir”) over 1,000 years ago. Maybe symbolically for the fractious behaviour of many parliaments, the continental ridge runs through Þingvellir where again it is possible to stand astride the two continents.
Near Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik and its beloved Blue Lagoon, a recently constructed bridge that needs to be adjusted every few years to account for the moving ground, stands astride a broader division between the two plates. A short stroll over the typical black volcanic soils quickly transports you from Europe to America.

While exploring the wild beauty of this majestic and mysterious landscape, keep a thought for those trying to build roads, pipelines and bridges as this wonderfully hospitable country literally slowly tears itself apart.

Other Scandinavian Posts
The Little Little Mermaid (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Fish, Fjords and Fantasy (Lofoten Island, Norway)
Reindeer Paté, Cloudberry Pie and Sweat (Kuopio, Finland)
The Seventeenth Century Titanic (Stockholm, Sweden)
The Viking Stonehenge (Kåseberga, Sweden)

Photo Source: map