Icelandic name

[tisoi]

There is an news anchor for Iceland's Stöð 2 (Channel 2) whose name is Telma Tomásson. Since she appears to be female, I wonder why her surname/patronymic is not Tomásdóttir. Some possibilities I've been thinking about: personal preference, name is not Icelandic, she's trangendered... heh. What do you think?

Comments

[chinesestudio]

I was under the impression that although almost all Icelanders do use patrynomics, there are also inherited surnames in Iceland(e.g. Halldór Laxness), so my guess would be it's a patrynomic that was adopted as a 'regular' surname and has been passed down.

[tortipede]

This (probably). My understanding is that about 10% of Icelanders have surnames, and an example of one where a patronymic has become a surname (although, admittedly, influenced by living abroad, like another commenter suggested) would be the late broadcaster Magnus Magnusson and his daughter Sally Magnusson.

[kapitankraut]

"Laxness" wasn't his birth name, though, he adopted it later on. The point is valid, though, as even a former Prime Minister (Geir Haarde, who had a Norwegian father) has an inherited surname.
The example I always find amusing is the footballer Eiður Guðjohnsen, whose surname is inherited despite sounding as Icelandic-patronymic as you could want.

[pne]

despite sounding as Icelandic-patronymic as you could want.

I don't know; I'd expect an Icelandic patronymic to end in -son. -sen sounds Danish to me.

[nlduffy]

Unrelated, the Google Translate for that article is hilarious!

But, from what I managed to glean, it sounds like she worked/lived in Belgium for a while. (Icelandic speakers, feel free to correct me.) So maybe it's the by-product of having lived in another culture?