Erikson

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A German-American psychoanalyst who proposed the eight stages of psychosocial development that people pass through across the human lifespan
2. The developmental psychologist famous for theorizing eight life stages, each defined by a central psychosocial conflict that must be resolved
3. A twentieth-century psychoanalyst whose theory of identity and lifelong psychosocial stages shaped the field of modern developmental psychology

Etymology: Erikson is a patronymic surname, meaning "son of Erik." In Scandinavian naming, a father's given name plus "-son" produced the family name, so Erikson is a family name that began as a description of a relationship rather than a fixed inherited label. The given name Erik comes from Old Norse "Eiríkr," built from "ei," meaning "ever" or "always," and "ríkr," meaning "ruler" or "powerful." The best-known bearer of the name, the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, was not born with it. He was born Erik Salomonsen in Germany to a Danish mother, took the surname Homburger from his mother's later husband, and eventually adopted Erikson himself. The name thus became a deliberate choice rather than an inheritance, and it is now most associated with his theory of psychosocial development.