Norske Gaardnavne
Encyclopedia
Norske Gaardnavne is a 19 volume set of books based on a manuscript prepared from 1897 to 1924 by Professor Oluf Rygh
, a noted professor of archeology, philology
and history
at the University of Oslo
. The book contains a standardized notation, information on pronunciation, historical forms and the etymology
for recorded gaardnavne (farm, estate & manor names) in Norway
. It was developed by detailed compilation of the various written and oral records of land ownership. It is the standard which establishes place names in Norway. Documenting over 45,000 farm names and related information in 1886, it became the inspiration for similar studies in Sweden
and Denmark
.
). The work was intended to correct inconsistencies and errors in place names. In 1878 the professors Sophus Bugge
, Oluf Rygh
and prost
Johan Fritzner were named as members of a commission to revise the names of recorded property.
Several issues complicated this effort:
. However many of the place names predate written records by over 1,000 years, complicating the process. Further, for large parts of the country there were no formal land records until the official record of 1723.
One of the commission’s main techniques for establishing names was through recording the oral pronunciation. To accomplish this, the commission studied pronunciations used among common people in day-to-day conversations. Differences were observed regionally as well as between urban and remote areas. However they found consistent relationships between the current verbal forms and the original names as found in both the current parish records and the older records.
, number
, grammatical case
and definite or indefinite article
. Where records of earlier names exist, the phonetic changes through time are analyzed. The analysis identified derivations from a variety of sources, including:
. Interest in the work was so great that in 1896 Parliament appropriated money to publish it. In 1897, the first volume in the series Norske Gaardnavne went to press.
Norske Gaardnavne was released in multiple volumes, with one or more volumes for each county
and a separate volume with the preface and introduction, so people could buy individual volumes for areas in which they were interested. When Oluf Rygh died, the introductory volume and the first two county volumes (Smaalenenes Amt
and Akershus Amt
) had been published. Volumes 3 and 4 were essentially finished. The manuscript for subsequent volumes were edited by Albert Kjær (volume 4 [Part 2], 6, 7, 9, 12 and 19), Hjalmar Falk (volume 5), Amund B. Larsen
(volume 8), Magnus Olsen
(volume 10 and 11) and Karl Ditlev Rygh
(volume 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17). In 1924 Just Knud Qvigstad
and Magnus Olsen released an eighteenth, county-specific volume covering Finmarkens County
.
Multiple editions of the work have subsequently been printed. With the support of the Arts Council Norway and nine counties, Norske Gaardnavne has been converted to an online digital database, which is available to the public for research.
Oluf Rygh
Oluf Rygh was a noted Norwegian archeologist, philologist and historian. Oluf Rygh is recognized as one of the founders of professional archeology in Norway.-Background:...
, a noted professor of archeology, philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
and history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
at the University of Oslo
University of Oslo
The University of Oslo , formerly The Royal Frederick University , is the oldest and largest university in Norway, situated in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. The university was founded in 1811 and was modelled after the recently established University of Berlin...
. The book contains a standardized notation, information on pronunciation, historical forms and the etymology
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
for recorded gaardnavne (farm, estate & manor names) in Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
. It was developed by detailed compilation of the various written and oral records of land ownership. It is the standard which establishes place names in Norway. Documenting over 45,000 farm names and related information in 1886, it became the inspiration for similar studies in Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
and Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
.
Work of the commission
The Norwegian Stortinget, in an act of June 6, 1863, commissioned a general revision of public register that defines Norwegian public and private lands to allow consistent land ownership records and to update the basis for taxation in Norway (a cadastreCadastre
A cadastre , using a cadastral survey or cadastral map, is a comprehensive register of the metes-and-bounds real property of a country...
). The work was intended to correct inconsistencies and errors in place names. In 1878 the professors Sophus Bugge
Sophus Bugge
Sophus Bugge was a noted Norwegian philologist and linguist. His scientific work was directed to the study of runic inscriptions and Norse philology. Bugge is best known for his theories and his work on the runic alphabet and the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda. -Background:Elseus Sophus Bugge was...
, Oluf Rygh
Oluf Rygh
Oluf Rygh was a noted Norwegian archeologist, philologist and historian. Oluf Rygh is recognized as one of the founders of professional archeology in Norway.-Background:...
and prost
Provost (religion)
A provost is a senior official in a number of Christian churches.-Historical Development:The word praepositus was originally applied to any ecclesiastical ruler or dignitary...
Johan Fritzner were named as members of a commission to revise the names of recorded property.
Several issues complicated this effort:
- Although various land records existed (e.g., Aslak Bolts jordebok from ~1433; Gautes jordebok from 1491; and Olav Engelbrektssons jordebok from 1533) there was no comprehensive record.
- Place names evolved as the language of record shifted from the Old NorwegianOld NorwegianOld Norwegian refers to a group of Old Norse dialects spoken and written in Norway in the Middle Ages. They bridged the dialect continuum from Old East Norse to Old West Norse.-Old Norwegian vs Common Norse:...
to DanishDanish languageDanish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
, which became the standard written language of Norway between the 16th and the 19th centuries. - No officially sanctioned standard of spoken Norwegian existed, and most Norwegians spoke their own dialect, resulting is significant variations is usage.
Sources for place names
Since spoken names evolve, the most useful etymological sources for place names are typically the oldest written sources. Hence the commission reviewed a number of older sources including old land records and the various letters and documents which comprise the Diplomatarium NorvegicumDiplomatarium Norvegicum
Diplomatarium Norvegicum is a series of books containing the texts of documents and letters from Norway older than 1590, verbatim and in the original language. The series consists of 22 volumes, containing the texts of approximately 20,000 documents....
. However many of the place names predate written records by over 1,000 years, complicating the process. Further, for large parts of the country there were no formal land records until the official record of 1723.
One of the commission’s main techniques for establishing names was through recording the oral pronunciation. To accomplish this, the commission studied pronunciations used among common people in day-to-day conversations. Differences were observed regionally as well as between urban and remote areas. However they found consistent relationships between the current verbal forms and the original names as found in both the current parish records and the older records.
Analysis of farm names
The etymologic analysis identified the grammatical form of names - including genderGrammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
, number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
, grammatical case
Grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
and definite or indefinite article
Article (grammar)
An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the and a/an, and some...
. Where records of earlier names exist, the phonetic changes through time are analyzed. The analysis identified derivations from a variety of sources, including:
- Names derived from the physical features of the area: hills, slopes, passes, peninsula points, islands, waterfalls, lakes, surfaces, etc.
- Names derived from the use of the land: ports, roads, etc.
- Name derived from the characteristic ground cover: trees, shrubs and plants
- Name related to animals and wildlife
- Name related to how the farm use including buildings on the farm and other human works
- Name derived from older words for home or cultivated land
- Name derived from the use of the farm or the farm history
- Name associated with folk religionFolk religionFolk religion consists of ethnic or regional religious customs under the umbrella of an organized religion, but outside of official doctrine and practices...
: pagan religious sites and practices - Comparison name, for example. with a piece of clothing, etc., or with body parts, animals or tools
- Name derived from rivers and river features
- Name that contains the name or nickname of an owner
- Complimentary and derogatory names
Publication
After the initial manuscript was completed in 1892] the material was submitted to the National Archival Services of NorwayNational Archival Services of Norway
The National Archival Services of Norway is a Norwegian government agency that is responsible for keeping state archives, conducts control of public archiving and works to preserve private archives. It is subordinate to the Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs and consists of the National...
. Interest in the work was so great that in 1896 Parliament appropriated money to publish it. In 1897, the first volume in the series Norske Gaardnavne went to press.
Norske Gaardnavne was released in multiple volumes, with one or more volumes for each county
Counties of Norway
Norway is divided into 19 administrative regions, called counties . The counties form the primary first-level subdivisions of Norway and are further divided into 430 municipalities...
and a separate volume with the preface and introduction, so people could buy individual volumes for areas in which they were interested. When Oluf Rygh died, the introductory volume and the first two county volumes (Smaalenenes Amt
Østfold
is a county in southeastern Norway, bordering Akershus and southwestern Sweden , while Buskerud and Vestfold is on the other side of the bay. The seat of the county administration is Sarpsborg, and Fredrikstad is the largest city.Many manufacturing facilities are situated here. Moss and...
and Akershus Amt
Akershus
- Geography :The county is conventionally divided into the traditional districts Follo and Romerike, which fill the vast part of the county, as well as the small exclave west of Oslo that consists of Asker and Bærum...
) had been published. Volumes 3 and 4 were essentially finished. The manuscript for subsequent volumes were edited by Albert Kjær (volume 4 [Part 2], 6, 7, 9, 12 and 19), Hjalmar Falk (volume 5), Amund B. Larsen
Amund B. Larsen
Amund Bredesen Larsen was a Norwegian linguist. He was one of the first to study Norwegian dialects and made the first dialect map of any Nordic country.-Early and personal life:...
(volume 8), Magnus Olsen
Magnus Olsen
Magnus Bernhard Olsen was a Norwegian linguist and a professor in Norse philology at the University of Oslo from 1908 to 1948...
(volume 10 and 11) and Karl Ditlev Rygh
Karl Ditlev Rygh
Karl Ditlev Rygh was a Norwegian archaeologist and politician for the Conservative Party.He was born in Verdal, and was the brother of Evald og Oluf Rygh. He graduated as cand.philol. in 1863. He was hired as a teacher at Trondheim Cathedral School in 1866, and worked as headmaster there from 1887...
(volume 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17). In 1924 Just Knud Qvigstad
Just Knud Qvigstad
Just Knud Qvigstad was a Norwegian philologist, linguist, ethnographer, historian and cultural historian. He was also a headmaster in Tromsø, and a politician for the Conservative Party who served as mayor of Tromsø and as Minister of Education and Church Affairs.-Personal life:He was born in...
and Magnus Olsen released an eighteenth, county-specific volume covering Finmarkens County
Finnmark
or Finnmárku is a county in the extreme northeast of Norway. By land it borders Troms county to the west, Finland to the south and Russia to the east, and by water, the Norwegian Sea to the northwest, and the Barents Sea to the north and northeast.The county was formerly known as Finmarkens...
.
Multiple editions of the work have subsequently been printed. With the support of the Arts Council Norway and nine counties, Norske Gaardnavne has been converted to an online digital database, which is available to the public for research.
Listing of the volumes in Norske Gaardnavne
| Volume | title | Author(s) | Publication date | Modern English equivalent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forord og innledning | O. Rygh | 1898 | Foreword and introduction | |
| I | Smaalenenes Amt | O. Rygh | 1897 | Østfold Østfold is a county in southeastern Norway, bordering Akershus and southwestern Sweden , while Buskerud and Vestfold is on the other side of the bay. The seat of the county administration is Sarpsborg, and Fredrikstad is the largest city.Many manufacturing facilities are situated here. Moss and... County |
| II | Akershus Amt | O. Rygh | 1898) | Akershus Akershus - Geography :The county is conventionally divided into the traditional districts Follo and Romerike, which fill the vast part of the county, as well as the small exclave west of Oslo that consists of Asker and Bærum... County |
| III | Hedemarkens Amt | O. Rygh | 1900 | Hedmark Hedmark is a county in Norway, bordering Sør-Trøndelag, Oppland and Akershus. The county administration is in Hamar.Hedmark makes up the northeastern part of Østlandet, the southeastern part of the country. It includes a long part of the borderline with Sweden, Dalarna County and Värmland County. The... County |
| IV-1 | 'Kristians Amt | O. Rygh | 1900 | Oppland Oppland is a county in Norway, bordering Sør-Trøndelag, Møre og Romsdal, Sogn og Fjordane, Buskerud, Akershus, Oslo and Hedmark. The county administration is in Lillehammer. Oppland is, together with Hedmark, one of the only two landlocked counties of Norway.... County volume 1 |
| IV-2 | Kristians Amt | O. Rygh with A. Kjær | 1902 | Oppland County volume 2 |
| V | Buskeruds Amt | O. Rygh with Hj. Falk | 1909 | Buskerud Buskerud is a county in Norway, bordering Akershus, Oslo, Oppland, Sogn og Fjordane, Hordaland, Telemark, and Vestfold. The county administration is located in Drammen.-Geography:... County |
| VI | Jarlsberg og Larviks Amt | O. Rygh with A. Kjær | 1907 | Vestfold Vestfold is a county in Norway, bordering Buskerud and Telemark. The county administration is in Tønsberg.Vestfold is located west of the Oslofjord, as the name indicates. It includes many smaller, but well-known towns in Norway, such as Larvik, Sandefjord, Tønsberg and Horten. The river Numedalslågen runs... County |
| VII | Bratsberg Amt | O. Rygh with A. Kjær | 1914) | Telemark Telemark is a county in Norway, bordering Vestfold, Buskerud, Hordaland, Rogaland and Aust-Agder. The county administration is in Skien. Until 1919 the county was known as Bratsberg amt.-Location:... County |
| VIII | Nedenes Amt | O. Rygh with Amund B. Larsen | 1905 | Aust-Agder Aust-Agder is a county in Norway, bordering Telemark, Rogaland, and Vest-Agder. In 2002, there were 102,945 inhabitants, which is 2.2% of the total population in Norway. Its area is . The administrative center of the county is in Arendal.... County |
| IX | Lister og Mandals Amt | O. Rygh with A. Kjær | 1912 | Vest-Agder Vest-Agder In the 16th century, Dutch merchant vessels began to visit ports in southern Norway to purchase salmon and other goods. Soon thereafter the export of timber began, as oak from southern Norway was exceptionally well suited for shipbuilding... County |
| X | Stavanger Amt | O. Rygh with Magnus Olsen | 1915 | Rogaland Rogaland is a county in Western Norway, bordering Hordaland, Telemark, Aust-Agder and Vest-Agder. It is the center of the Norwegian petroleum industry, and as a result of this, Rogaland has the lowest unemployment rate of any county in Norway, 1.1%... County |
| XI | Søndre Bergenhus Amt | O. Rygh with Magnus Olsen | 1910 | Hordaland Hordaland is a county in Norway, bordering Sogn og Fjordane, Buskerud, Telemark and Rogaland. Hordaland is the third largest county after Akershus and Oslo by population. The county administration is located in Bergen... County |
| XII | Nordre Bergenhus Amt | O. Rygh with A. Kjær | 1919 | Sogn og Fjordane Sogn og Fjordane is a county in Norway, bordering Møre og Romsdal, Oppland, Buskerud, and Hordaland. The county administration is in the town of Hermansverk in Leikanger municipality while the largest town is Førde.... County |
| XIII | Romsdals Amt | O. Rygh with K. Rygh | 1908 | Møre og Romsdal Møre og Romsdal is a county in the northernmost part of Western Norway. It borders the counties of Sør-Trøndelag, Oppland and Sogn og Fjordane. The county administration is located in Molde, while Ålesund is the largest city.-The name:... County |
| XIV | Søndre Trondhjems Amt | O. Rygh, with K. Rygh | 1901 | Sør-Trøndelag Sør-Trøndelag - References :... County |
| XV | Nordre Trondhjems Amt | O. Rygh with K. Rygh | 1903 | Nord-Trøndelag Nord-Trøndelag is a county constituting the northern part of Trøndelag in Norway. As of 2010, the county had 131,555 inhabitants, making it the country's fourth-least populated county. The largest municipalities are Stjørdal, Steinkjer—the county seat, Levanger, Namsos and Verdal, all with between 21,000 and... County |
| XVI | Nordlands Amt | O. Rygh with K. Rygh | 1905 | Nordland Nordland is a county in Norway in the North Norway region, bordering Troms in the north, Nord-Trøndelag in the south, Norrbottens län in Sweden to the east, Västerbottens län to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The county was formerly known as Nordlandene amt. The county administration is... County |
| XVII | Troms Amt | O. Rygh with K. Rygh | 1911 | Troms Troms or Romsa is a county in North Norway, bordering Finnmark to the northeast and Nordland in the southwest. To the south is Norrbotten Län in Sweden and further southeast is a shorter border with Lapland Province in Finland. To the west is the Norwegian Sea... County |
| XVIII | Finmarkens Amt | J. Qvigstad & Magnus Olsen | 1924 | Finnmark Finnmark or Finnmárku is a county in the extreme northeast of Norway. By land it borders Troms county to the west, Finland to the south and Russia to the east, and by water, the Norwegian Sea to the northwest, and the Barents Sea to the north and northeast.The county was formerly known as Finmarkens... County |
| XIX | Fællesregister | 1936 | Errata |