Jeg har haft mit eget domæne ‘fern.dk’ siden 1. april 1998. Da jeg skulle vælge domænenavn, var det svært for mig at finde et passende navn, men endte altså med at vælge ‘fern’. Jeg boede (og bor) på Bregnerødvej i Birkerød, så ‘bregne’ eller ‘bregnerød’ ville være oplagte muligheder. ‘bregnerød’ duede ikke, for dengang kunne man ikke bruge nationale bogstaver som æ, ø og å i domænenavne. Jeg var i øvrigt mest vant til at bruge engelsk i IT-sammenhæng – oversættelser til dansk var der kun få af, og de var af meget blandet kvalitet – så det endte altså med ‘fern’, det engelske ord for bregne.
I en tidligere version af disse sider havde jeg en længere forklaring til benefice for engelske venner på hvorfor jeg valgte ‘fern’ Den får I lige her:
Why ‘fern’?
If you wonder why I chose the name ‘fern’ for my domain, here is an explanation:
I live in the town of Birkerød on a street called Bregnerødvej in Danish. The suffix ‘vej’ means ‘road’ in English and Bregnerødvej is actually the road that leads to the neighboring village of Bregnerød.
The suffix ‘rød’ in the name ‘Bregnerød’. is derived from the Danish word for a clearance in the woods (‘rydning’) and has nothing to do with the color ‘rød’ (red). The ‘bregne’ part of the word is simply Danish for the plant ‘fern’. So apparently the village of Bregnerød is situated at a place that was once a clearance filled with fern.
So when I had to choose a simple, short name for my domain and I live on Bregnerødvej, ‘fern’ was one of the first that came to my mind, and I ended up by choosing it.
BTW, the suffix ‘rød’ is quite common here in North Zealand, but it is usually connected with a man’s name. E.g. Birkerød lies in what was a clearance made by a viking called Birk. ‘Birk’ is also the Danish name for the tree called birch, but the learned people say that the former explanation (that it was made by a man called Birk) is the better of the two.
City (or village) names ending in ‘rød’ date back to the 12th century or so.