Norske Gaardnavne is a 19-volume set of books based on a manuscript prepared from 1897 to 1924 by Oluf Rygh, a noted professor of archaeology, 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 in Norway. It was developed by detailed compilation of the various written and oral records of land ownership. It is the standard that 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.
Work of the commission
The Norwegian Stortinget, in an act of 6 June 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. The work was intended to correct inconsistencies and errors in place names. In 1878 the professors Sophus Bugge and Oluf Rygh, and the deanJohan 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, there was no comprehensive record.
No officially sanctioned standard of spoken Norwegian existed, and most Norwegians spoke their own dialect, resulting in significant variations in usage.
Analysis of farm names
Etymological analysis identified the grammatical form of names, including gender, 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:
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 the use of the farm or the farm history
Name associated with folk religion: 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 Norway. Interest in the work was so great that in 1896 the parliament appropriated funding 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 had been published. Volumes 3 and 4 were essentially finished. The manuscript for subsequent volumes were edited by Albert Kjær, Hjalmar Falk, Amund B. Larsen, Magnus Olsen, and Karl Ditlev Rygh. In 1924 Just Knud Qvigstad and Magnus Olsen released an eighteenth, county-specific volume covering Finnmark. 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.
