Icelandic Naming Committee

The Icelandic Naming Committee^[1] (Icelandic: Mannanafnanefnd;^[2] pronounced [ˈmanːaˌnapnaˌnɛmt])—also known in English as the Personal Names Committee^[3]—maintains an official register of approved Icelandic given names and governs the introduction of new given names into the culture of Iceland.

Composition and mission

The Naming Committee was established in 1991^[2] to determine whether new given names not previously used in Iceland are suitable for integration into the country's language and culture. The committee comprises three appointees who serve for four years, appointed by the Minister of Justice—one to be nominated by the Icelandic Language Committee, one by the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Iceland, and one by the university's Faculty of Law.^[3]

A name not already on the official list of approved names must be submitted to the naming committee for approval. A new name is considered for its compatibility with Icelandic tradition^[4] and for the likelihood that it might cause the bearer embarrassment.^[5] Under Article 5 of the Personal Names Act,^[3] names must be compatible with Icelandic grammar (in which all nouns, including proper names, have grammatical gender and change their forms in an orderly fashion according to the language's case system). Names must also contain only letters occurring in the Icelandic alphabet, and with only occasional exceptions, a name's grammatical gender must match the sex of the person bearing the name.^[6]

As of the end of 2012, the Personal Names Register contained 1,712 male names and 1,853 female names.^[7]

Blær Bjarkardóttir Rúnarsdóttir controversy

Passport of Blær Bjarkardóttir Rúnarsdóttir, using Stúlka (Icelandic for "girl") in place of her real given name

The committee refused to allow Blær Bjarkardóttir Rúnarsdóttir (born in 1997^[8]) to be registered under the name given to her as a baby, on the grounds that the masculine noun Blær ("gentle breeze" in Icelandic) could be used only as a man's name. Blær—identified in official records as Stúlka^[8] ("girl" in Icelandic)—and her mother, Björk Eiðsdóttir, challenged the committee's decision in court, arguing that Blær had been used as the name of a female character in a novel by Nobel-Prize-winning Icelandic author Halldór Laxness.^[9][10]

On 31 January 2013, the Reykjavík district court ruled in the family's favour and overruled the naming committee, finding that Blær could in fact be both a man's and a woman's name and that Blær had a constitutional right to her own name, and rejecting government claims that it was necessary to deny her request in order to protect the Icelandic language.^[11] After the court's decision, Iceland's interior minister confirmed that the government would accept the ruling and would not appeal the case to the country's Supreme Court.^[12][13] The chair of the naming committee, as well as a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior, said the ruling in Blær's case could prompt the government to revisit the current laws on personal names.^[1]

References

External links

• List of names accepted and rejected by the Mannanafnanefnd at Island.is (Icelandic)
• Mannanafnanefnd application form at Domsmalaraduneyti.is (Icelandic)

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