King’s College 2004 v Mistress Gunnvör sílfrahárr
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Terminology
Personal
name
vThe particular
combination of sounds employed as the individual designation of a single person. For the Norse, this was a name given to a
person at birth or in a naming
ceremony. Synonyms: anthroponym, given name, first name, forename, Christian name, baptismal name.
Byname
vA byname (Old Norse upphefni, viðurnefi) is
a name other than a person's personal name. "Byname" is a broad term that may
include patronymics and various epithets. Bynames were a very common way to tell one person from
another with the same given name
in period. The pool of available given names was quite small by modern standards, and even in the smallest villages there were
bound to be several people named
Óláfr or Björn or Þórvaldr. Bynames were formed from all sorts of words and frequently described some physical or social aspect of
the person bearing them, and were
often not at all complimentary. In period, they were usually comprised of a short, descriptive word or phrase. Synonyms:
appellation, eke name, nickname, epithet,
sobriquet.
Patronymic
vA type of byname given
to offspring to indicate the name of the father.
Matronymic
vA type of byname given
to offspring to indicate the name of the mother.
Diminutive
name
vA shortened form of the
given name, e.g., Beth and Liz are diminutives of Elizabeth.