Every Name Has a Place: Discover Iceland’s People and Farms Through History

Have you ever wondered who lived on a particular Icelandic farm a century ago - or even further back in time?

Thanks to a groundbreaking new platform, you now can.

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of a powerful open-access tool for historical research and cultural discovery: the Historical People and Farm Database (Icelandic: Sögulegt mann- og bæjatal), now live at 👉 smb.mshl.is

🔍 What Is It?

The database is a digital treasure chest of Icelandic heritage, allowing you to:

• Look up any farm in Iceland and discover who lived there across time.

• Download full datasets in CSV format for your own research, genealogical project, or historical deep-dive.

• Trace names and lineages, connect family stories, and explore regional settlement patterns through centuries of recorded life in Iceland.

This tool provides unprecedented access to Iceland’s rural history - one farm, one name, one generation at a time.

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🧠 Who Made It?

The project is the result of years of careful development by Pétur Húni Björnsson, who has meticulously designed the platform to combine technical excellence with historical richness. His work is hosted by the Center for Digital Humanities and Arts (MSHL) and was generously funded by the Icelandic Infrastructure Fund (Innviðasjóður).

Together, they are pushing forward Iceland’s goal of creating world-class digital infrastructure for the humanities and arts.

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📚 Who Is It For?

Whether you're:

• A historian or academic working on Icelandic rural society,

• A genealogist tracing your Icelandic roots,

• A student working on a local history project,

• Or simply curious about who lived where and when - 

This platform opens a new doorway into Iceland’s human geography.

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💡 Why It Matters

Place names and personal histories are more than data - they are the threads of national memory. By linking farms to families, this database enriches our understanding of Iceland’s social fabric, migration patterns, and naming practices through time.

It also exemplifies how digital humanities can serve both scholarship and public curiosity, offering reliable, open tools to engage with the past.

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🧭 Ready to Explore?

Begin your journey into Icelandic history today:
🔗 smb.mshl.is

Zoom in on a farm. Download a dataset. Learn who stood where you now stand.

🧬 History has never been this searchable.

Icelandic Conference "Place Names in the Field"

 

The Onomastics Conference of the Icelandic Onomastics Society will be held in the lecture hall of Edda on October 19th from 13:00–16:30. This time, the theme of the conference is Place Names in the Field.

The Society was founded in the year 2000 with the purpose of promoting knowledge in name studies and supporting research on various types of names.

Program

13:00 Opening of the conference

13:05 Dagrún Ósk Jónsdóttir and Jón Jónsson: Power Spots and Place Name Registries

13:35 Bjarki Bjarnason: Goðaland and Gunnarshólmi: On Place Names in Njál’s Saga Sites

14:05 Guðbjörg Vilhjálmsdóttir and Torfi H. Tulinius: Chasing Place Names: Walking to Every Búrfell in the Country

14:35 Coffee Break

15:00 Sigurður Ægisson: The Grave of the Völva in Iceland

15:30 Ómar Valur Jónasson: Minjavísir: Place Names as Clues to Archaeological Sites

16:00 Emily Lethbridge: Literature in the Field: Following in the Footsteps of Þorgerður Brák in Borgarnes

16:30 End of the conference

Nafnaþing Nafnfræðifélagsins: Örnefni á vettvangi

Nafnaþing Nafnfræðifélagsins verður haldið í fyrirlestrasal Eddu 19. október kl. 13.00–16.30. Að þessu sinni er yfirskrift þingsins Örnefni á vettvangi.

Nafnfræðifélagið var stofnað árið 2000 og hefur þann tilgang að efla þekkingu á nafnfræði og stuðla að rannsóknum á nöfnum af ýmsu tagi. 

 

Dagskrá

13.00 Þingið sett

13.05 Dagrún Ósk Jónsdóttir og Jón Jónsson. Álagablettir og örnefnaskrár

13.35 Bjarki Bjarnason. Goðaland og Gunnarshólmi: Um örnefni á Njáluslóðum

14.05 Guðbjörg Vilhjálmsdóttir og Torfi H. Tulinius. Að eltast við örnefni: Gengið á öll Búrfell landsins

14.35 Kaffihlé

15.00 Sigurður Ægisson. Völvuleiði á Íslandi

15.30 Ómar Valur Jónasson. Minjavísir: Örnefni sem vísbending um minjar

16.00 Emily Lethbridge. Bókmenntir í felti: Á slóðum Þorgerðar brákar í Borgarnesi

16.30 Þinglok

Live stream: Opening of the Icelandic Placenames Archive

 link

On Friday we’ll be officially opening our new database which makes the incredibly rich #Icelandic #placename #archive held by the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies openly accessible and searchable. Follow the live-stream event!

The event will be in Icelandic and the database is too but an other lang versions will come soon.

Föstudaginn 18. desember, kl. 15, verður nýr vefur Árnastofnunar, nafnið.is, formlega opnaður. Af því tilefni verður haldinn smáviðburður sem streymt verður á netinu. Sagt verður frá vinnunni við vefinn og flutt stutt erindi um örnefni. Í lok fundar mun Lilja D. Alfreðsdóttir menntamálaráðherra opna vefinn formlega.

Á vefnum má finna gögn um íslensk nöfn af ýmsu tagi. Vefurinn veitir aðgang að örnefnasafni Árnastofnunar sem nú er orðið leitarbært í heild sinni. Verkefnið er unnið í samstarfi við Landmælingar Íslands.

Dagskrá:
Guðrún Nordal, forstöðumaður Stofnunar Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum, ávarpar gesti.
Emily Lethbridge kynnir verkefnið.
Svavar Sigmundsson: „Staðhættir segja til nafns“.
Birna Lárusdóttir: „Heimur opnast“.
Trausti Dagsson og Pétur Húni Björnsson sýna notendaviðmót.
Lilja D. Alfreðsdóttir, mennta- og menningarmálaráðherra, opnar vefsíðuna.

Krækja á streymi fundarins er hér.