Keywords:onomastics, gender, inflection

This paper gives an overview of some of the most important aspects of Icelandic law as it relates to the Icelandic naming system. The law states that girls shall be given “female names” and boys shall be given “male names”. In most instances it is quite clear whether a given name is a woman’s name or a man’s name.

An important factor in this respect is that virtually all female names have the typical inflectional characteristics of feminine nouns and male names have the inflectional characteristics of masculine nouns. On the basis of this, a particular name, Blær, is discussed in the paper and it is pointed out that this name is related to (or derived from) the common noun blær ‘breeze’, which is a masculine noun.

Not surprisingly, then, the name Blær has mostly been borne by men. In a well known novel by Halldór Laxness, however, this name occurs as a woman’s name and a few women are known to have carried this name.

As discussed in the paper, in such instances a clash between the sex of the name bearer and the inflectional characteristics of the name is inevitable. Consequently it is not at all clear how the name Blær should be inflected when it is used as a woman’s name although its inflection is simple and straightforward when it is used as a man’s name (in the latter case in inflects like the common masculine noun blær ‘breeze’).