Estate name
An estate name, also house name or farm name, is a specific type of toponym that designates an estate, house, or farm.
Other terminology
Within the toponomastic classification, the main types of oeconyms, and comonyms, which are the proper names of villages, from, kōmē).Sometimes, the term ecodomonym is used to refer specifically to a building as an inhabited place. Comparatively, the term mansionym is used to designate a historical residence. Lay terms referring to the proper name of a house or other building include house name, farm name, which refers to a agricultural property, or a property name, which refers to a non-agricultural property.
Individuals may traditionally be referred to by their estate names rather than their surnames in Basque, Finnish, Norwegian, Slovene, and other languages. In these cultures, the name of the property is more or less fixed and may refer to the people living there at any particular time, regardless of their actual surname or whether they recently purchased or moved to the property.
Examples of estate names
German
German estate names were often adopted as surnames. Surnames with such origins are most common in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia.Icelandic
Explicit reference is made to estate names in Njáls saga, a 13th-century Icelandic work describing events between 960 and 1020. For example:
Þar eru þrír bæir er í Mörk heita allir. Á miðbænum bjó sá maður er Björn hét og var kallaður Björn hvíti.
'There are three farms in that district, all called Mörk. At the middle farm lived a man named Björn , known as Björn the White.'
In comparison to estate names in Norwegian and Faroese, in which the share of such names based on persons' names may be as low as 4 to 5%, in Icelandic approximately 32% of estate names are based on a personal name. Since 1953, estate names have been enshrined in law, and Icelandic farms are required to have registered names approved by a special committee. As travel by ship became more common in Iceland, the number of farms that had to be distinguished grew in number, and more complex compound names were created. In compound Icelandic estate names, the single most common second element is -staðir 'place', although topographical suffixes form the largest group of such elements.
Norwegian
Norwegian farm names are based on various factors associated with a property: local geography, land use, vegetation, animals, characteristic activity, folk religion, and owners' nicknames. Such names in Norway were collected in the 19-volume collection Norske Gaardnavne, published between 1897 and 1924. Typical suffixes on such names include -bø, -gaard/-gård, -heim/-um, -land, -rud/-rød, and -set. After the 1923 naming law was passed in Norway, many rural people adopted the names of the farms where they lived as surnames. These estate names were retained as surnames even after they moved away to towns or emigrated. It is estimated that 70% of surnames in Norway are based on estate names.The traditional estate name system was not retained among Norwegian emigrants to the United States, even in communities where Norwegian continued to be spoken. It has been suggested that this was because of cultural differences, whereby American farms were perceived as income sources rather than traditional family seats.