Icelandic names committee approves Aragorn and 10 other names

Iceland’s names committee has approved 11 new first names, including Aragorn, the name of one of the central characters in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, mbl.is reports. The decisions were issued on October 16 and 21. The committee rejected two other names, Ceasar and Ýsafold.

Aragorn was approved as a male name, as was Enzo. The approved female names are Auróra, Bessý, Elisa, Flórentína, Ksenía, Ragndís and Lyngrós. Frill and Traust were approved as gender-neutral names.

The committee rejected Ceasar because its spelling does not follow Icelandic spelling rules and there is no tradition for that spelling in Iceland or other countries. Ýsafold was also rejected. The committee said it was a spelling variant of Ísafold, which is already on the register of approved names, and that the spelling with ý does not follow Icelandic rules and has no established tradition.

The committee raised concerns about Elisa, Enzo and Ksenía but approved all three. Elisa could be considered an unauthorised spelling variant of the established name Elísa. However, nine women who meet the committee’s criteria bear the name Elisa, with the oldest born in 1986. The committee also cited the name’s connection to the spelling Elisabeth and approved it on the basis of tradition.

Enzo was approved despite the letter z not being part of the Icelandic alphabet. The committee said it was a foreign name adopted into Icelandic and was known with that spelling. Ksenía was approved even though the letter combination ks does not occur at the beginning of Icelandic words. The committee said the name could be considered an adaptation of an Eastern European name to Icelandic spelling rules.

The committee also approved two requests to adapt patronymics to Icelandic: Lúðvíksdóttir, derived from Ludwik, and Tadeusson, derived from Tadeusz.