You may have noted that many Scandinavian names end in –son, or –sen, depending on whether you are mainly Danish or Norwegian (-sen), or Swedish (-son).
Indeed the most common surnames in Sweden are as follows:
1. Andersson 217,000 claimants
2. Johansson 215,000
3. Karlsson 160,000
4. Nilsson 149,000
5. Eriksson 121,000 (and Ericsson?)
6. Larsson 110,000
7. Olsson 93,000
8. Persson 92,000
9. Svensson 86,000
10. Gustafsson 63,000
The next 11-20 are also -sons. Add to that all of the other various -sons and you have significant portion of the 11 million population. Approximately 30%, according to my cybernetic assistant.
You don’t have to be a genius to work out that these people were originally named after their fathers’ first name – if they had a surname at all, that is. So Patronymics Rule OK!
But it wasn’t always the case.
For a start, women used to be a major exception, since they would take their surname from the first name of the mother – the matronymic. What’s more these proto-feminists even had the effrontery to lay claim to their own sex. That’s to say, if your mother was called Kristin Lavrinsdotter and your father Karl Persson, then you would have the surname Kristinsdotter rather than Karlsdotter. Or Karlsson, for that matter.
To confuse the issue further, up until the end of the 1800s some people still hadn’t made up their minds what they wanted to be called, or didn’t see the necessity for it, and so enjoyed only a first name, no doubt followed by a few epithets for the sake of strangers to the village.
Alternatively, you might choose to be called after the village or town itself. So we might get ‘Kalle Staffanstorp’, for example, if Kalle wanted to draw attention to the fact that he was the ‘Karl’ who was proud to come from the community of that name. Though, to be frank, if I came from there I wouldn’t want to advertise the fact.
Other exceptions that relieved the monotony were provided by early immigrants, largely from Germany and France, and ‘learned men’, most notably priests, but also academics like Linnaeus, who was originally Carl von Linné.
Soldiers were also a spectacular exception to the patriarchal rule of the patronymic. The moment they enlisted, they would be given a ‘soldatnamn’. Understandable when you think about it. Not much use saying ‘Take a step forward there, Johansson’ and then finding half the regiment does it. Besides, in the heat of battle the name Halvarsson might take far too long to spit out. So soldier’s names tended to be short, sharp and to the point. And for those that were loth to renounce their heritage, there was the consolation that most such names are usually quite complimentary. Like ‘Frisk’ (think ‘frisky’), ‘Tapper’ (brave), ‘Modig’ (brave again, yawn) and ‘Svärd’ (sword). Apparently, these could be less obvious. ‘Bonjour’, for example. I mean where did that one spring from? Presumably, one of the imported French officers that came with the Bernadotte dynasty started to feel homesick and came up with the name in the same way as you might name your pet hamster after your deceased grandmother.
By the same token, one can’t help but suspect that some soldiers were awarded names that weren’t quite so flattering. But then I guessed they wouldn’t be passed down through the family, or perhaps they died off by a process of attrition. Anyone called ‘Fegis’ (‘coward’), for instance, might have found himself assigned to a suicide battalion as a punishment for his uncooperative attitude. And if he didn’t, he surely would have had difficulty attracting a mate.
Most strikingly, there is really no real tradition here of the use of one’s trade as a surname. In Britain, for example, we have any number of ‘Smiths’; in Germany the same applies to ‘Schmidts’. And it is uplifting to learn that Enzo Ferrari could be translated as Larry Smith. But no Swedish ‘Smeds’, as far as I know – though you occasionally find it grafted into a longer name like ‘Smedberg’.
My final and favourite exceptions, however, are to be found within the nobility, who presumably needed something to distinguish them from the peasantry – besides fine clothes, flash houses and full bellies, that is.
Let’s start at the very top with a 13th century king, who was born Erik Eriksson but acquired in the course of what one assumes was a less than illustrious career, the name of Erik läspe och halte – roughly speaking ‘Eric the lisping cripple’. You might wonder which way he wobbled. I mean, was he more relieved to get rid of such a common surname or peeved that he got such an appalling replacement? At least the name makes him memorable. Which is more than can be said for a tedious procession of Erik Erikssons, Knut Erikssons, Erik Knutssons, and Knut Knutssons. So maybe he had the last laugh.
Other less royal but still jolly posh favourites include Gyllenstierna, the original Guildenstern I guess. This means Gold Star, which was presumably not a prize for modesty. Natt och Dag, Night and Day, is also a fave and apparently the oldest noble family name in the country – ironically, since it sounds like a convenience store. It was, in fact, rather disappointing to find that the name comes from the heraldic shield which is depicted in the blue of Night and the yellow of Day.
My own personal Number One, though, is Puke. Obviously, the founder of the family tree was unfamiliar with its meaning in English. Having said that, the Swedish sense is hardly complimentary either, since the word apparently means ‘devil’ or ‘bad spirit’. Still, I suppose this kind of name might give any potential encroacher on Pukean turf second thoughts. And in any case, ‘the devil is coming’ is surely a more effective deterrent than ‘I think I’m going to throw up’.
Interestingly this arbitrary and confusing state of affairs persisted until the early twentieth century, shortly after telephone directories were introduced. Nomenclature was then standardised somewhat – no doubt to make cold-calling easier.
Which it clearly isn’t on Iceland. There the patronymic surnames persist and so the phone directories are based on a fairly limited stock of names. Fortunately, the matronymic still lingers on and provides some relief and there is a very small trickle of immigration to the country. But locating someone’s landline number, or its electronic equivalent remains a challenge. Admittedly only about 400,000 people live on the island. But even so, you have to narrow down the search by looking for the Christian name – or rather, given Icelandic traditions, the Pagan name. If that doesn’t help, then you could check the area the person you’re looking for lives in. And if all else fails, then only the ID number will work.
Back in Sweden, it was in 1901 that an act of Parliament regulated that everyone should be called something – both as a first name and a surname. And the default monicker, if you couldn’t come up with one of your own, was the patronymic – on the principle that everyone was some father’s son. Even if the father may sometimes have been in a state of denial.
But the patronymic still rolled on, meaning that surnames were not hereditary. So if your father was called Engelbert Humperdincksson, then you might have the joy of turning the tables and be called, for example, Humperdinck Engelbertsson. Though, just for the record, I don’t think this ever happened – in Sweden at least.
In fact, it wasn’t till 1963 that the Patronymic Principle was abolished. So if your surname was Göransson at the time of this Name Law, presumably because your father’s first name was Göran, then your son’s surname would also be Göransson. Even, or perhaps especially, if your own first name was Elvis.
Oddly enough, a further law of 1982 allowed the use of the patronymic again, if you applied for special permission, though I know of no-one that has done this. But then, I don’t get out much.
With daughters, the pesky matronymics also persisted after the 1901 law, even if they became less common. But that nonsense was finally put a stop to in 1924, when wives became legally obliged to take their husband’s name on marriage, by which the ‘-dotter’ suffix died a natural death. It’s heartening to observe, however, that ‘dotters’ are making a comeback. So Dotters are Doing it for Themselves. Finally. Again. Though I’m not sure how they go about it.
Most likely, they have to apply for the name change. This has become increasingly common over the last few decades, as people try to shake of the terrible yoke of heredity. These days, you can apply through the Swedish Tax Authority. This may sound a bit odd, but there’s a helluva lot you do through the Tax Office in Sweden – as well as a whole lot of things you can’t do, of course.
The more genteel classes had caught on early with this. As far back as the 19th century, up and coming families had marked their own territory by switching from the patronymic to more distinctive names. Interestingly, these were usually very much nature-related. It strikes me as sweetly atavistic that the urbanising middle-class should seek to recall their rural roots in this way. So surnames like Löfström (Leafstream) and Bergquist (Mountaintwig) became common in certain circles.
In 1982 this opportunity was opened to the hoi polloi. If you ever come across a Swede with a really wacky surname it probably dates back to this time, since the law was repealed in 2017. The latest variant allows free choice (on application to the taxman, of course) but within certain limits. You can choose what name you want as long as at least 2,000 other people have that name already. So now, Conformity Rules, OK!
And if you want to surname yourself after all the members of Sweden’s world championship-winning hockey team of 2018, you can just forget it.
Perhaps most common among name changes these days is that people choose to go by both father and mother’s surnames. This works well enough when they have radically different surnames. Erik Karnhed Persson, for example, does have a certain ring to it that elevates it above the plebeian. A little like the English Smythe-Fforde, which in turn sounds a lot more classy than either Ford or Smith. In the case of my nephews (the above Erik and Carl), however, the double barrel came about as a result of their parents’ divorce – a laudable example of Swedish sporting behaviour.
Some, however, don’t wait for their parents to untie the knot before labelling themselves with two tags. I don’t know how I’d feel about this. I suspect I’d suspect that my children were trying to send me a message about the state of my marriage. Unless, of course, the child in question was a passionate feminist who refused to bow under the yoke of patriarchy.
Whatever the reason, and whatever the arguments for such a change of identity (or should it be identification?), there are cases where it is not to be recommended – largely on the grounds of opening yourself to ridicule. What, for example, if your Mum was called Andersson and your Dad Johansson? You would end up with a surname PG Wodehouse would have been proud of. Even worse, how about Persson Persson? (The Swedes don’t go in for hyphens much.) And as for Tomsson Thomsson, the Belgians would be splitting their sides. And so would Tin Tin, I guess.
Finally, there’s the option of retaining your maiden name on marriage, which has also become increasingly popular of late. This muddies the waters further in the search for family trees. But it’s all in the same good feminist cause as suffixing your patronymic with a ‘–dotter’ instead of a ‘–son’. When I got married to a Swedish wife, I felt sure, as a paid-up Women’s Libber, that she would do this. She chose instead to take my surname instead, claiming she’d been waiting all her life to get rid of hers. It was Persson, so go figure. I suppose now that makes her an unPersson.
Roll over George Orwell.
Letters from Sweden 