The Icelandic alphabet has two letters of its own. Icelandic nearest kins among languages are Faroese, the language spoken in the Faroe Islands, and Norwegian. Other Nordic languages are also closely related to the Icelandic language, such as Swedish and Danish. The exception is Finnish, which is an entirely different language. Very few Icelanders have original surnames, so it can often be difficult to decipher out the telephone directory, which lists people by their first names.
Most people have a patronymic rather than a family surname.
In other words, people derive their last name from their father and the outcome depends on the sex of the child. For example, Hr arsson, means the son of Hr ar, and Finnbogad ttir means the daughter of Finnbogi. Women do not change their names when they marry. Therefore, when a couple has two kids, a boy and a girl, no-one in the family has the same last name. Literary Heritage Icelanders have reserved considerable number of manuscripts dating from the middle ages to present times.