Viking Age Norse names with the authentic patronymic: Erik Haraldsson, Astrid Haraldsdottir. Norse people had no surnames - the second name said whose child you were.
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How these names are built
Vikings did not have surnames. A Norse person carried one given name, and if a second name was needed it was a patronymic - the father's name plus -sson (son of) for a man, or -dottir (daughter of) for a woman. So the son of Harald was Haraldsson and his sister was Haraldsdottir, from the same father. This is not a historical curiosity: Iceland still names people this way today, and the Icelandic naming committee still approves new given names. This generator draws a real Old Norse given name and builds the matching patronymic, so the result follows the actual naming rule rather than a modern surname convention.
How the generator works
Rolled from matched male and female real-name banks — 512 combinations — using your browser's random source. Nothing is sent anywhere: the whole tool runs on your device.
Examples
Roll
Result
Erik + Haraldsson
Erik Haraldsson
Astrid + Haraldsdottir
Astrid Haraldsdottir
Ragnar + Sigurdsson
Ragnar Sigurdsson
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Vikings really have no surnames?
Correct. Hereditary family names are a much later convention in Scandinavia. What looks like a surname in the sagas is a patronymic, and it changed every generation - Erik Haraldsson's son would be Leif Eriksson, not Leif Haraldsson.
Why -sson and -dottir?
The endings mean son of and daughter of. Two siblings share a father but not a second name, which is why a brother and sister from the same family end up with different patronymics.
Is this system still used?
Yes, in Iceland. Icelanders are listed in the phone book by given name precisely because patronymics do not sort families together the way surnames do.