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An oeconym, also econym, or oikonym (from , oîkos, 'house, dwelling' and ὄνυμα, ónuma, 'name') is a specific type of toponym that designates a proper name of a house or any other residential building. In a broader sense, the term can also refer to the proper name of any inhabited settlement, like a village, town, or city.Gornostay, Tatiana, & Inguna Skadiņa. 2009. Pattern-Based English-Latvian Toponym Translation. Proceedings of the 17th Nordic Conference on Computational Linguistics NODALIDA, May 14–16, 2009, Odense, Denmark, NEALT Proceedings Series, 4: 41–47.Zgusta, Ladislav. 1996. Names and Their Study. In: Ernst Eichler et al. (eds.) Namenforschung: ein internationales Handbuch zur Onomastik / Name Studies, vol. 2, pp. 1876–1890. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter, p. 1887.
Sometimes, the term ecodomonym (from , domos) is used to refer specifically to a building as an inhabited place.Room, Adrian. 1996. An Alphabetical Guide to the Language of Name Studies. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. Comparatively, the term mansionym is used to designate a historical residence (e.g., the Daniel Boone Homestead). Lay terms referring to the proper name of a house or other building include clan,Cromley, Elizabeth C. 1990. Alone Together: A History of New York's Early Apartments. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, p. 143. farm name, which refers to a agricultural property, or a property name, which refers to a non-agricultural property.
Individuals may traditionally be referred to by their oeconyms rather than their surnames in Basque,Ott, Sandra. 1981. The Circle of Mountains: A Basque Shepherding Community. Reno: University of Nevada Press, p. 43. Finnish, Norwegian,Helleland, Botolv, & Kjell Bondevik . 1975. Norske stedsnavn/stadnamn. Oslo: Grøndahl, p. 157. Slovene,Baš, Angelos. 2004. Slovenski etnološki leksikon. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga. p. 168. and other languages. In these cultures, the name of the property is more or less fixed and may refer to the people living there at any particular time, regardless of their actual surname or whether they recently purchased or moved to the property.
Þar eru þrír bæir er í Mörk heita allir. Á miðbænum bjó sá maður er Björn hét og var kallaður Björn hvíti. Icelandic Saga Database: Brennu-Njáls saga.In comparison to oeconyms in Norwegian and Faroese, in which the share of such names based on persons' names may be as low as 4 to 5%, in Icelandic approximately 32% of oeconyms are based on a personal name.Jesch, Judith. 2015. The Viking Diaspora. London: Routledge. Since 1953, oeconyms have been enshrined in law, and Icelandic farms are required to have registered names approved by a special committee.Kvarad, Guðrún. 2005. Social Stratification in the Present-Day Nordic Languages IV: Icelandic. In: Oscar Bandle (ed.), The Nordic Languages, pp. 1788–1793. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, p. 1793. As travel by ship became more common in Iceland, the number of farms that had to be distinguished grew in number, and more complex compound names were created.Adams, Jonathan, & Katherine Holman. 2004. Scandinavia and Europe 800–1350: Contact, Conflict, and Coexistence. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 104. In compound Icelandic oeconyms, the single most common second element is -staðir 'place', although topographical suffixes ( -dalr 'valley', -nes 'headland', -fell 'hill', -eyrr 'bank') form the largest group of such elements.Sigmundsson, Svavar. 1998. Icelandic and Scottish Place-Names. In: W. F. H. Nicolaisen (ed.), Proceedings of the XIXth International Congress of Onomastic Sciences, Aberdeen, August 4–11, 1996: Scope, Perspectives and Methods of Onomastics, vol. 1. pp. 330–342. Aberdeen: University of Aberdeen, p. 330.
'There are three farms in that district, all called Mörk. At the middle farm lived a man named Björn Kaðalsson, known as Björn the White.' (chapter 148)
The traditional oeconym system was not retained among Norwegian emigrants to the United States, even in communities where Norwegian continued to be spoken. It has been suggested that this was because of cultural differences, whereby American farms were perceived as income sources rather than traditional family seats.Kruse, Arne. 1996. Scandinavian-American Place-Names as Viewed from the Old World. In: P. Sture Ureland et al. (eds.), Language Contact across the North Atlantic, pp. 255–268. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, pp. 262–263.
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