in iceland parents have to name their childeren from a list of goernment approved names. this is because  in iceland, childrens second (surname) is taken from their father's name, with 'son' added to the end if the child is male and 'dottir' added to the end if the child is female. for example, my icelandic friend is called Àsi and his father is called Herman, so my icelandic friend is called Àsi Hermanson. and if his brother were in fact a sister he/she would be called Hjortur Hermansdottir. the whole government approved business is because if somewone is named stupidly then that name lasts for 2 generations and not just one.

i suppose its a reasonalbe idea but eventually, unless its a massive list people are going to get bored of the names, as said celebrities and chiniese couple above have done.

p.s. i just read over that and it seems I've explained it in such a convulted way that it doesn't even make sense to me... hopefully the people of EP-dom can decifer it...