Iceland

[Captain_Curmudgeon]

This was done to confuse the enemy at one time. I am probably totally off on this but it's what I learned years ago.

As it should turn out, Erik the Red, early real-estate scammer, "named the land Greenland, saying that people would be eager to go there if it had a good name."

Sort of like the builders in my neighborhood, who cut down all the trees (couple of firs and a lot of scrub oak) on a lot and called it "Maple Cove."

Naturally,
R.O.
PS. You can read about it here.

[Brenton]

Keith, the names have never ever been "switched", where did you get that from?
Iceland has always been called Iceland, for like, 1000 years.

No pam, I'm not - but I have friends in Iceland, and learning the language and so forth.

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History of Iceland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
According to Landnámabók, Iceland was discovered by Scandinavian sailor Naddoddr, who was sailing from Norway to the Faroe Islands, but got lost and drifted to the east coast of Iceland. Naddoddr named the country Snæland (Snowland). Swedish sailor Garðar Svavarsson also accidentally drifted to the coast of Iceland. He discovered that the country was an island and named it Garðarshólmi (literally Garðar's Islet) and stayed for the winter at Húsavík. The first Scandinavian who deliberately sailed to Garðarshólmi was Flóki Vilgerðarson, also known as Hrafna-Flóki (Raven-Flóki). Flóki settled for one winter at Barðaströnd. It was a cold winter, and when he spotted some drift ice in the fjords he gave the island its current name, Ísland (Iceland).

[Maya]

I suppose that in Iceland they stil use the old method when they give name to a child with the petterson or Pettersdaughter system. The Icelandic names are not easy to pronaunce... me thinks. My huband can an old Norwegean language that is close to the Isladic language. Norwegean and Islandic have drifted far away from one an other. In teh adult conferance where i met my husband was also a young man from Island He must now be around 50. He communicated with English as no one understod what he said...

[KeithLBrown]

My apologies Brenton. I was not saying that the names of the two countries were ever switched. What I said or meant to say is that having lived in Iceland and having flown over Greenland, the names should have been switched. Yes, I know that Iceland has always been Iceland and Greenland has always been Greenland. Sorry if I confused anyone. Thanks.

[KeithLBrown]

Mailis, the naming system of the sons and daughters is stilled used in Iceland to this day. Children are the "son" of someone or the "daughter" of someone. Actually, it makes it very easy to identify the family line. The names are quite interesting and some are very hard to pronounce. Unfortunately in the year that I was there I never learned much of the language. Our Conferences were all done through translation. It was interesting to hear the missionaries trying to keep up and translate what was being said.

[Brenton]

Yes.
Names are like, for example, (without the icelandic characters, cant be bothered atm): Agusta Eva Erlensdottir, Bjork Gudmunsdottir, Siggi Guthmunsson