egennavne

Egennavne is a linguistic term used in Danish and Norwegian to describe proper names—names that refer to unique, specific entities rather than general categories. They designate individual persons, places, organizations, brands, works of art, events, and similar items. This class is contrasted with fællesnavn (common nouns), which name general items rather than particular ones.

Typical categories of egennavne include personnavn (names of people, including fornavn and etternavn), stednavn (place names such as towns, rivers, countries), organisasjonsnavn (names of companies, institutions, agencies), brandnavn (brand names), and ekte navn of works or events (book titles, festivals, wars, concerts). Subtypes such as anthroponyms (person names) and toponyms (place names) are common in linguistic discussions of egennavne.

Orthography and usage are characterized by capitalization in standard Danish and Norwegian writing systems. Egennavne function referentially, pointing to a particular entity in discourse. They are not typically used as general count nouns, and their syntactic behavior can differ from that of common nouns. In many languages, they can appear in possessive or compound constructions, and their forms may vary in citation or in languages with case or gender systems.

In linguistic study, egennavne are part of onomastics, the study of names. Researchers examine their typology (such as anthroponyms, toponyms, and other categories), their semantic content, and their role in meaning, reference, and discourse. The term helps distinguish naming units that designates single, identifiable referents from everyday nouns that denote classes or species.