Isn’t it about time for some kind of consensus on the proper rendering of the name?
Leif Ericson
Leif Erickson
Leif Ericsson
Leifr Eiraksson
Leif Erikson
Leifur Eiricksson
Lsif Erickson
What is your favorite Anglicisation? I think we can settle on “Leif” for the first name. The patronym seems to most often be either “Erickson,” “Ericson,” or “Erikson.” Duluth needs a referendum on this.
23 thoughts on “Speaking of the old Viking”
Here it is. I was just in Iceland and photographed the Leifr Eiricsson monument in Reykjavik, his home. This is how his name was spelled. The first ‘i’ in Eiricsson is an Icelandic character that’s not English. So we couldn’t spell it correctly even if we wanted to!
Maybe we should give him a moniker, or some kind of alias.
Their Leifr Eiricsson monument is way more badass than ours.
Having spent a great deal of time in the park over the last few years I definitely prefer Leif Ericson, although the official Duluth spelling appears to be Leif Erikson.
This is better than Erickson which I simply cannot abide.
How about just referring to him as “The Leif”
Just goes to show, there’s no undo or spellcheck on solid rock.
Jesus Josephson , that’s a lot of spellings!
When I first came to Duluth I read ‘Leif Erickson Park’ somewhere. My head processed the words as “Leif Garrett Park”
I thought something was seriously wrong with this town for a few weeks.
I believe here in Duluth we use the “Leif Erikson” spelling because that was how it was spelled by the shipbuilders who built the replica ship sailed from Norway to Duluth by Capt. Gerhard Folgero and crew back in 1926.
So for use in historic references to the replica ship in Duluth, the park, etc., that’s how it should be spelled.
(Before Bert Enger and his businesses partner Emil Olson purchased the ship, what we call “Leif Erikson Park” was “Lakeshore Park, ” and was intended to reach to the corner of the lake, near where the Endion Station now stands; Enger and Olson insisted on the name change).
There is another statue of Leif in the U.S., near another large body of water in what was once a Scandinavian neighborhood. Any guesses?
Am I the only one who got excited about this post because I thought it was referring to the Viking bar in Superior? The “old Viking” was great…colorful characters, a high likelihood the guy with the hook would be there hitting on all the ladies, an even higher likelihood the police would come by to pick someone up, cheapest beer in town. Once the ownership changed hands things just haven’t been the same. Leif Erickson’s cool and all, but not as cool as my favorite old Viking.
Tony: are you talking about Los Angeles? I took this photo of a Leif Erikson bust in LA. It looks a lot like Al Sparhawk.
There’s another one besides Los Angeles but I’m disqualified because I accidentally found it yesterday while I was trying to verify the “correct” spelling in Duluth Parks and Rec. I’m assuming you wanted people to guess sans Google/Wikipedia support, right?
By the way Tony D. you totally persuaded me on this subject now, 180 degrees. If that’s the spelling the shipbuilders used now it makes perfect sense to me to use it for the park, I still don’t LIKE it, but it makes sense.
—
As for Leif EriKson’s latest conquest, sjxxxy must have been referring to the tradtion of Nursing students “dressing” him up on graduation each spring. I could see a PDD gallery of various incarnations over the years … and maybe some more history on that long run of playful (not harmful or destructive) pranks. The best kind just wrecking stuff like apparently those kids did in Hibbing area last week is tragic, not at all funny.
For got a period in my hamfisted typing/grammar and ruined the meaning of what I was trying to say. I meant the best kind of graduation pranks are the harmless, playful ones. Not the destructive ones where people just vandalize and deface beautiful works of art, architecture or nature or other stuff stuff with no creativity, humor or good taste.
“Leif the Lucky”
@Tony D. Just a guess but: Chicago?
Not L.A.; not Chicago.
It is a major city, though, so hard to hint without giving it away.
The same neighborhood where the staue is found includes a restaurant called Hattie’s Hat that has lutefisk on the menu, a few doors down from the Tractor Tavern, named for a painting by Duluth native Dan Amell, which hangs behind the bar.
True to my Norwegian roots I had to explore ~~~~~ Tony D’s hints.
Could this be it?
I actually thought you meant this one, Brooklyn, New York City which has yet another spelling: Leiv Eiriksson.
Jude, that is indeed the one!
Thanks for playing, everyone!
EriK is totally the way to go.
A friend of mine lives right next to that park in Brooklyn…I got the biggest kick out of that the first time I visited her there.
I would support Erikson, since I don’t believe in the letter C.
Leif Ericsson? Wasn’t he that one pop star from the early eighties who went on VH1 and had a tearful reunion with that one dude in the wheelchair. Tears were flying.
Does anyone knows why the statue was erected in Duluth? Also, is it possible to get hold of someone who lived in Duluth in 1956 and remembers the statue being erected?
Local interview stories must be due for UMD journalism department.