Danish Roots

If you are going to trace your Danish family history, you have to understand the naming patterns that were used in the country in the past. What can be confusing is that there are relatively few given names. There are an awful lot of people with the last name Hansen, Christensen, Jensen, Andersen, Petersen, Jorgensen, Mortensen, Sorensen; well, you get the picture. I have all of them in my family tree.  And to make matters worse, children did not have the same last name as their parents.

So, here we go with a simple explanation of the Danish patronymic naming system followed until the mid-1800s.

It’s really quite simple — the father’s first name became the children’s last name with sen (son) or datter (daughter) added on.  For example, Peter Christensen’s sons would have the last name Petersen, while his daughters would be Petersdatter.

As far as first names are concerned, the traditional naming pattern went something like this: the first son was named after the paternal grandfather and the first daughter after her maternal grandmother. The second son was named after his maternal grandfather and the second daughter after her paternal grandmother. If additional children were born they were usually named after aunts or uncles although some were given Biblical names.

But you can see how even in a small village not all Hansens are related.