Proper Nouns: Personal and Place Names | Icelandic Grammar

In English a name is a fixed label: "Jon" is "Jon" whether he sees you, you see him, or you borrow his book. Icelandic does not work this way. Proper nouns decline like every other noun — they change their ending according to case — so the same person is Jón as a subject, Jón as an object, Jóni when something is given to him, and Jóns when something is his. To an English speaker this is genuinely startling: you have to inflect people's names, place names, and even your own name. Leaving names uninflected is the single most visible mistake a foreigner makes in Icelandic. This page shows how names decline, how places decline, and how the famous -son / -dóttir surnames are built.

Personal names follow their gender's declension

A first name is just a noun with a gender, and it declines by the ordinary rules for that gender. There is nothing special about its endings — what's special is only that English speakers don't expect a name to change.

Masculine names like Jón decline like a strong masculine noun:

Case	Jón (m.)	Used when…
nom.	Jón	he is the subject
acc.	Jón	he is the direct object
dat.	Jóni	he is the recipient / after a dative verb or preposition
gen.	Jóns	something is his

Jón er kominn heim.

Jón is home. — nominative (subject).

Ég sé Jón úti á götu.

I see Jón out on the street. — accusative object; here Jón happens to look the same as the nominative, but it IS the accusative.

Ég gaf Jóni bókina.

I gave Jón the book. — dative recipient: Jóni.

Þetta er bíll Jóns.

This is Jón's car. — genitive possessor: Jóns.

Feminine names split by class. Guðrún is a strong feminine; María and Anna are weak feminines (the -a type). Compare:

Case	Guðrún (strong f.)	María (weak f.)	Anna (weak f.)
nom.	Guðrún	María	Anna
acc.	Guðrúnu	Maríu	Önnu
dat.	Guðrúnu	Maríu	Önnu
gen.	Guðrúnar	Maríu	Önnu

Two things to notice. The weak feminines collapse the whole oblique (acc./dat./gen.) into one form — Maríu, Önnu — exactly like the common noun kona → konu. And Anna → Önnu shows the u-umlaut: the stem a rounds to ö before the -u ending. That umlaut is the same sound law that turns gata into götu; names obey it just like any other word.

Önnu finnst gaman að synda.

Anna likes swimming (lit. 'to Anna it seems fun'). — dative Önnu, with a→ö umlaut.

Þetta er bók Önnu.

This is Anna's book. — genitive Önnu; *bók Anna would be a glaring foreigner error.

Ég hitti Guðrúnu og Maríu í gær.

I met Guðrún and María yesterday. — accusative Guðrúnu and Maríu.

💡

The genitive of a name is what you reach for constantly, because it's how you say "X's": bók Önnu ("Anna's book"), bíll Jóns ("Jón's car"), hús Guðrúnar ("Guðrún's house"). If you can produce the genitive of every name you use, you've solved most of the day-to-day burden.

Place names decline too

Towns, regions and countries are nouns, so they decline as well — and you meet their oblique forms constantly, because prepositions and the genitive of direction force them. The capital Reykjavík is feminine: you live í Reykjavík (dative, same as the nominative here) but go til Reykjavíkur (genitive -ur). Akureyri has the genitive Akureyrar; Selfoss (masculine) is á Selfossi (dative -i) with genitive Selfoss.

Place	Nom.	Dat. (location)	Gen. (after til)
Reykjavík (f.)	Reykjavík	í Reykjavík	til Reykjavíkur
Akureyri (f.)	Akureyri	á Akureyri	til Akureyrar
Selfoss (m.)	Selfoss	á Selfossi	til Selfoss

Við keyrðum frá Reykjavík til Akureyrar á einum degi.

We drove from Reykjavík to Akureyri in one day. — dative Reykjavík after frá, genitive Akureyrar after til.

Hún flutti til Selfoss í fyrra.

She moved to Selfoss last year. — genitive Selfoss after til.

Plural place names exist too and decline as plurals — Egilsstaðir (a -staðir town) is á Egilsstöðum (dative plural, with u-umlaut) and til Egilsstaða (genitive plural). You don't need to master every place name's class at once, but you must accept that the place name will change shape after a preposition.

Foreign names are inflected too — including yours

Here is the point learners resist hardest: Icelandic inflects foreign names as well, fitting them into the nearest native pattern. A Sara is treated as a weak feminine, so "to meet Sara" is að hitta Söru (accusative, with the u-umlaut a → ö exactly as in Anna → Önnu). A Peter becomes Peters in the genitive. Names that simply can't be fitted to a pattern (because they end in an unusual way) may stay put, but the default instinct is to decline.

This means your own name gets inflected when you speak Icelandic — and you should do it yourself rather than freeze it. If your name is Emma, you are Emma (nom.) but Emmu (acc./dat./gen.); if it's David, you're Davíð → Davíðs in the genitive. Leaving it uninflected marks every sentence as foreign.

Ég ætla að hitta Söru á eftir.

I'm going to meet Sara later. — Sara declines as a weak feminine: accusative Söru (a→ö).

Þetta er símanúmer Söru.

This is Sara's phone number. — genitive Söru.

The patronymic system: -son and -dóttir

Most Icelanders don't have a family surname; they have a patronymic (occasionally a matronymic) built from a parent's first name. The recipe is simple and case-driven: take the father's first name in the genitive and add -son ("son") for a son or -dóttir ("daughter") for a daughter.

Parent's name	Genitive	Son	Daughter
Jón	Jóns	Jónsson	Jónsdóttir
Guðmundur	Guðmundar	Guðmundarson	Guðmundardóttir
Guðrún (matronymic)	Guðrúnar	Guðrúnarson	Guðrúnardóttir

So Jónsson is "Jón's son," and Guðrúnardóttir is "Guðrún's daughter" — and the -ar/-s sitting in the middle is exactly the genitive ending of the parent's name. This is why siblings of different sexes have different surnames (Jónsson vs Jónsdóttir) and why a married couple keep their separate patronymics. Because the patronymic is a name, it too declines: frá Jóni Jónssyni ("from Jón Jónsson," dative).

Hún heitir Anna Guðrúnardóttir.

Her name is Anna Guðrúnardóttir. — a matronymic: Guðrún's (gen. Guðrúnar) + dóttir.

Ég talaði við Jón Jónsson í morgun.

I spoke with Jón Jónsson this morning. — both names are accusative here.

💡

The patronymic is built on the genitive of the parent's name, so it's a free reward for learning name genitives: Jóns → Jónsson, Guðmundar → Guðmundardóttir, Guðrúnar → Guðrúnardóttir. Get the genitive right and the surname builds itself.

Common Mistakes

❌ Ég gaf Jón bókina.

Incorrect — the recipient is dative: Jóni, not the bare Jón.

✅ Ég gaf Jóni bókina.

I gave Jón the book.

❌ Þetta er bók Anna.

Incorrect — possession needs the genitive; Anna's oblique form is Önnu.

✅ Þetta er bók Önnu.

This is Anna's book.

❌ Við förum til Akureyri.

Incorrect — 'til' takes the genitive, so the place name must be Akureyrar.

✅ Við förum til Akureyrar.

We're going to Akureyri.

❌ Ég ætla að hitta Sara.

Incorrect — even foreign names inflect; the accusative of Sara is Söru.

✅ Ég ætla að hitta Söru.

I'm going to meet Sara.

❌ Hún heitir Anna Guðrún-dóttir.

Incorrect — the patronymic builds on the genitive of the parent's name: Guðrún → Guðrúnar.

✅ Hún heitir Anna Guðrúnardóttir.

Her name is Anna Guðrúnardóttir.

Key Takeaways

Proper nouns decline like common nouns — names change case in running text, which surprises English speakers who treat names as fixed labels.
Personal names follow their gender's class: Jón / Jón / Jóni / Jóns; strong feminine Guðrún / Guðrúnu / Guðrúnu / Guðrúnar; weak feminine María / Maríu and Anna / Önnu (with u-umlaut).
Place names decline too: Reykjavík → Reykjavíkur (gen.), Akureyri → Akureyrar, Selfoss → á Selfossi — driven by prepositions and the genitive of direction.
Foreign names are inflected as well (hitta Söru), and that includes your own name — don't freeze it.
The patronymic -son / -dóttir attaches to the genitive of a parent's name: Jóns + son, Guðrúnar + dóttir.

Now practice Icelandic

Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.

Start learning Icelandic→