Danish Name Lexicon: A New Web-Dictionary of Danish Personal Names

Abstract

Danish Name Lexicon (“Dansk Navneleksikon”) is an ongoing project that establishes a web lexicon with Danish personal names. This first edition includes data on the meaning and origin of the most frequent first names in Denmark today. As in other countries, Danish personal names originate in many different languages and have come to Denmark in different cultural contexts and periods. Nevertheless, many names are related in terms of origin and linguistic formation. In the lexicon, we use the relationships between names and name forms to illustrate their development. At the same time, tags are added to each name and name form to characterise their linguistic origin, semantic category, etc. The article explains the data structure that utilizes the relationships between the individual names, allowing all entries about names with shared origin to share this info in the end-user interface, as well as explaining how a suitable format for editing the first edition was established, based on freeware and without substantial financing. The lexicon has been available for the public since 2021 at https://ordnet.dk/dnl, and the results of the first edition show that the innovative data structure is promising and that a continuation of the project with additional name material would seem feasible.