Patronymics in general

• Icelanders, as mentioned above, are named after their fathers. Magnus Ragnarsson´s father´s first name would be Ragnar. If Ragnar also had a daughter, her last name would be Ragnarsdottir. Ragnar himself would be named after his father, something like Ragnar Gunnarsson. So people tend to identify each other by first name and even entries in telephone directories would typically be based on first names rather than last names.

• Patronyms are also used in Greece, and can tell you from which region a person comes: Peloponese "poulos", e.g. Petropoulos (son of Petros); Crete "akis", e.g. Petrakis (son of Petros); Macedonia "ides", e.g. Petrides (son of Petros); Island of Cephalonia "atos", e.g. Petratos (son of Petros); Mani region os Peloponese "akos", e.g. Petrakos (son of Petros); Asia Minor "oglou", e.g. Petroglou (son of Petros) also used by the Turks. Use this to impress Greek players.

• In Spanish culture – at least in Cuba and Puerto Rico – you add your mother’s maiden name to the end of your name. That is the name that is used to look someone up in the phone book. Jorge Menendez becomes Jorge Menendez Donnell, and to find him in the Puerto Rican phone book, one must look under Donnell. Narciso Rabell, who is the FIDE delegate from Puerto Rico, is Narciso Rabell Mendez. However, when you speak with them, you would address them as Jorge Menendez and Narciso Rabell.

• The Iranian -zadeh means son of, as in Moshrefzadeh.

• Turkish oğlu means son of, as in Naim Süleymanoğlu.

• In the Arab world fathers will sometimes proudly attach the names of their sons. "Abu" means father of, and Umm means mother of (Ibn means son of, and Bint means daughter of). Abu Bakr and Abu Hamid mean"father of" a son named Bakr or Hamid. This should help you understand why in news reports you will often hear a Palestinian negotiator referred to by name, followed by the additional information, e.g. the new Palestinian Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas – commonly known as Abu Mazen...

• The Fresian Dutch have ´-ma´ for son of, as in Anema = son of Ane, Jellema = or son of Jelle.

• The Welsh ap or p is a patronym builder. Pritchard comes from ap Richard, son of Richard, and the common Welsh name Pugh is derived from ap Hugh.

• Northern Germany had an extensive system of patronymics, with the oldest son getting the name of his paternal grandfather, the second son that of the maternal grandfather, with the first name being the genitive form of the father´s name. This complicated system was abolished in 1811 – by Napoleon.

• In English we have Johnson, Jackson, Peterson, etc. Fitz- also denotes "son of" (as in Fitzgerald, son of Gerald). But this prefix was frequently used for illegitimate children of aristocrats (e.g. Fitzclarence = son of the Duke of Clarence) and royalty (Fitzroy = son of the king). So Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton, was the bastard son of Charles II and Barbara Villiers, the Duchess of Cleveland. Fitz is the Norman form of the modern French fils = son.

You can learn a lot about patronym in this Wordsmith discussion. Some of the above information was gleaned from that excellent site.

Quoted from: here

Interesting!

For the normal Dutch language, the ending of names can be "-szoon", which would evolve to "-sen" and sometimes even "-s" ...for example the son of Hendrik would be "Hendrikszoon", "Hendriksen" or "Hendriks.