What Do You Call Someone From Iceland? (Answered!)

Someone from Iceland is called Icelandic. The relationship to Iceland could be ancestral, residential, or simply legal, but in any case you could call a person with relation to Iceland Icelandic. Icelanders themselves are the primary ethnic group of Iceland, though you also have considerable immigrant populations.

So, the short answer is that someone from Iceland is called Icelandic.

Iceland is more or less an ethnic monolith, with no real “indigenous” groups to complicate the question of what an Icelander is ethnically speaking.

Of course, though, the question of modern nationality tends to be a much more complicated one.

Let’s find out more.

In This Article

What is someone from Iceland called?

Someone from Iceland is called Icelandic.

You may also call them an Icelander, but Icelandic is the adjective, demonym form for someone who comes from Iceland.

With a question like this, it’s always important to remember the complexity of what we are actually asking.

Today, anyone who lives in Iceland or is descended from Icelanders could call themselves Icelandic, and this might have a few different meanings.

The simplest thing it means is that it is someone from Iceland, who is ethnically Icelandic, and who lives in the country.

Equally, though, a first generation immigrant may think of themselves and prefer to call themselves Icelandic.

At the same time, they may also identify with the other aspect of their national identity which they get from their parents, even if they’ve never been to the original country.

This person is also Icelandic.

On the other hand, someone whose parents or grandparents were Icelandic, but who themselves has never been to Iceland due to immigration, may equally think of themselves as Icelandic and identify with the country they have moved to.

With any nation, then, it’s a more complicated question than you might at first think.

We’ll get into questions of native Icelandic ethnicity shortly, but this is also a question to consider; around 81% of the country’s population is made up of ethnic Icelanders, leaving plenty of room for other groups in the country.

Around 5.6% of the population are of Polish descent, 1% are Danish, and a variety of other ethnic groups make up around 12% of the population.

Again, all of these people may both feel themselves to be Icelandic and something else, or perhaps not even Icelandic at all.

They may never have stopped identifying with their original ethnic group.

Again, either way, the simple answer is that someone from Iceland is Icelandic.

Where does the name “Iceland” come from?

There’s a common myth that the island was given the name “Iceland” by Viking settlers in order to discourage others from settling their new island.

This, though a good tale, is unfortunately a myth.

Iceland’s extensive Sagas detail the country’s history with obviously a large mixture of real history and legend, and supposedly a Norwegian named Naddodd was the first to reach Iceland.

Naddodd is said to have named the island Snaeland, or Snow Land, given the snow on the island.

Tradition states that Iceland was discovered in the year 1000 AD.

Again, this is not far off, but it seems clear that the island had been settled before that; one fairly reliable source states the settlement began in 874.

Either way, the country today got its present name from the story of Flóki, a Norseman who made it to Iceland and then climbed a mountain on the island.

He was met with a view of the surrounding fjord, filled with icebergs; thus the island got its present name.

In many ways, calling this island Iceland seems entirely fitting; it is bitterly cold and surrounded by ice in the winter, as I’m sure you know.

Who are the native people of Iceland?

So, then, who are the native people of Iceland today, and where do they descend from?

As mentioned, around 81% of Icelanders today are what we would call ethnically Icelandic.

The Icelandic people are descended from two main groups: the Norse and the Celts.

Again, popular legend has it that Norsemen would take their Celtic slave wives to Iceland, but there’s not necessarily any reason to believe they were all slaves.

Much admixture went on and there was plenty of peaceful contact between Vikings and Celts or Gaelic people.

Either way, the primary stock of native Icelanders today is Norse and Gaelic, descending all the way from those who first settled the island in the 9^th Century.

What language do Icelanders speak?

Icelanders speak Icelandic, a West Scandinavian language that is ultimately in the same linguistic group as English: Germanic.

There are around 360,000 native speakers in Iceland, and what’s particularly fascinating about the Icelandic language is that it has gone virtually unchanged for more than a millennia.

Old Norse, the language spoken across the Scandinavian world in the early medieval period, and in which most “Viking” myths were written, is essentially the same as modern Icelandic.

Iceland’s language academy has fiercely defended the language from change in order to facilitate this, meaning anyone who learnt Old Norse in school wouldn’t have a terribly hard time navigating Iceland.

Iceland is a fascinating nation, then, home to virtually all of the Old Norse literature that survives to us.

The people today are a fairly mixed bag in a couple of ways, but in terms of our modern sense of someone’s legal nationality, then the word Icelandic works fine for any situation.

Of course they could also be called an Icelander, though this is arguably a slightly different term.

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Founder - @PollyWebster

Polly Webster is the founder of Foreign Lingo and a seasoned traveler with a decade of exploration under her belt.

Over the past 10 years, she has journeyed to numerous countries around the globe, immersing herself in diverse cultures, traditions, and languages.

Drawing from her rich experiences, Polly now writes insightful articles about travel, languages, traditions, and cultures, sharing her unique perspectives and invaluable tips with her readers.

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