Sweden Ran Out Of Names

[@NameExplain]

I would love to hear from people from Sweden what they think of their last name and if they would ever change it or have doen!

[@Thylaacine]

My family came from Norway but most of them were either Ole or Hans.

[@hglundahl]

I am a Swede. You have bungled the prior to 1901 situation. Names in -son and -dotter were the rural farmers' names. There is also a genitive -s prior to them. Pettersson, not "Petterson" Apart from these, you had: * noble names, like Wasa, Gyllenstierna, De Mornay, Kulneff * clerical names like Arborelius (Latinised) * bourgeois names often a bit French (Noreen = Norén) * military names, which are one syllable for soldiers (Rask) and two syllables for officers (Lundahl, my ancestor being a Dragoon, a light cavalry under officer). The former competing with -son names in the countryside, the latter with bourgeois names. What you say basically sounds as if nature names in preference over -son names came after 1922, which is not overall true. Some obviously did. My family has changed the spelling from Lundal to Lundahl.

[@hglundahl]

@@Thylaacine Any of them Hans-Ole? I think George Lucas was inspired by hearing the name of one for a character named Han Solo!

[@sandradermark8463]

Our paternal family changed its surname from Andersson to Dermark. At the turn of last century. They're Gothenburgers.

[@Thylaacine]

@@hglundahl there may have been a Hans Olson or Ole Hanson.

[@eliasstenman3710]

Daughter is called dotter in Swedish, not dóttir.

[@iwiffitthitotonacc4673]

Yeah that's Icelandic.

[@gudenruben]

It was dóttir in Old Norse and Old Swedish so it was called that in Sweden in the Middle Ages at least (though not for the past hundreds of years).

[@Ettibridget]

And datter in danish.

[@DJPJ.]

@@Ettibridget Same in Norway.

[@0000-z4z]

In German, "Dotter" is the yellow of the egg.

[@Majorkill675]

The "dotter" suffix is pretty uncommon in sweden, but certainly exists

[@Ettibridget]

It exists in Denmark too as -datter, but is VERY rare.

[@KevinUchihaOG]

yeah, he said that in the video

[@Majorkill675]

@@KevinUchihaOG was just re emphasising the point

[@alicelarsson165]

There's been a trend where some feminist women now changes their lastnames to -dotter, because they don't like having the manly patriarcal -son.

[@Cythil]

It is very uncommon here. But I have met one. But... She was from Iceland, so I do not think that counts. >_>

[@izackholmgren4686]

As a swede myself I can confirm that we dance around like frogs and eat a large amount of meatballs. And all of us are born on ikea furniture.

[@MatameVideos]

Do you have to assemble your babies after they're born? Like, baby's are born as loose unattached numbered parts and an instruction manual?

[@Zangooserr]

i fucking knew it

[@jetmirillyrien]

you forgot kanelbullen

[@NoNameAtAll2]

swedish meatballs are known throughout whole galaxy

[@88marome]

@ꨆꨟꨮꩆ ꨣꨰꨕ It's not a joke

[@martinmilosevic9403]

The "Fathers name + Son/Dòttir" thing is Iceland. In Sweden, "Name + sson/dotter" is a thing yes, and common, but it's not your fathers name anymore, and hasn't been for generations. For example, if the name is Svensson, than both you, your parent, their parent, etc had that last name. But go back several generations and yes, there will be a Sven with a different last name.

[@KevinUchihaOG]

you commented this before wathcing the whole video? Cause he says this in the video.

[@FreyasArts]

Yeah he said that they got rid of this system for good in 1901 and had been phasing it out already beforehand...

[@saftobulle]

The name that is followed by son/dóttir is always in genitive (I think), which is why there’s often an -s before son/dóttir. Some nouns (including names) use the -ar suffix to mark genitive though. And masculine nouns ending in -i would change the ending to -a, an feminine nouns ending in -a would change the ending to -u. In modern Swedish, genitive is always marked with an -s suffix, which is why you always get “Xsson” and ”Xsdotter”

[@goranurengard]

I have a completely unique Swedish family name "Urengård". My dad was born a "Johansson" and my mom a "Eriksson". In the 1960's they moved to Stockholm and got married and eventually changed their last name to "Urengård" (Derived from an old estate name that goes back to medieval times, "Urgude".). There both good and bad things that comes with the name. You have absolutely no anonymity but maybe you become more aware of your identity and your individual responsibility. I would'nt wanna change it.

[@nyala9824]

Interesting! I have a Swedish grandmother named Birgit Nikell. The surname comes from her father Carl Ivar Niklasson, who was fed up of every surname in the family ending with either -sson or -dotter, and wanted something a little less repetitive.

[@kemasuk]

You get to brag that another person out there doesn't share any part of your name.

[@SicMvndvsCreatvsEst8]

@@kemasuk Yes, it's cool isn't it!

[@heitorpedrodegodoi5646]

So naming your son Grinar Grinarson is not anymore?

[@eken1725]

Haha Uringård

[@ABlindMoose]

I'm very fond of my last name Lund. It's short, easy for (most) foreginers to pronounce, and not *too* common. It's a very common half of a last name (as of the 1901 suggestions, I think), but usually there's another component to the name - either before or after. It's also easy to translate (grove). There are two major downsides with it though. 1. It does mean "penis" in Hindi, I think... 2. in languages without a differentiation between R and L, it often ends up as "Rund", which means round. Which is unfortunate, as I myself am quite.... round....

[@aidenbooksmith2351]

this made me laugh quite hard thanks for sharing!

[@phyconinja]

If you want to jump across the border from Sweden over to Norway, we have some interesting backstories to some last names here too. Tho alot of the most common ones are from son of. (Olsen= son of ole, Hansen = son of hans, etc) But a lot of last names are from the name of the family farm people grew up on back in the days. And farm names usually comes from a description of something around the farm. Some easy ones from common last names ( Berg= mountain, Dahl = valley, and Lie = mountain slope) Some are more "complex" ones (Solberg = Sun mountain, Solbakken = Sun Hill, or my own Engvold = Field Mound) Some are more obviously from a farm, because they have farm in the name in some capacity. (Nygård =new farm, Solheim = Sun home) And some just means farm (Sætre, Torp, Heimen, all means farm or home in some way) One interesting last name is Ødegaard, it means somthing like "desolate farm", and comes from farms that were empty after the black plague killed 1/3 of the population in Norway back in 1349-1350. And somehow it's the 88th most popular last name today! Also, if you come across any name ending in Rud or Rød, it's deriverd from rydsning, an old norwegian word mening clearing, a place that was cleared in order to build a farm.

[@TheZebinator]

I come from the region of Dalarna in Sweden and we have our own spin on this idea. Many of the old farm houses (fäbod - "animal house") had its own name, usually based on the founder of that household. So say you are named Olof and you live in the fäbod/gård named Liss-gården, you then have a boy and you want to name him Erik, according to traditional naming conventions this boy would be named Liss-Erik Olofsson. It's sadly dying out with time, but in smaller villages around here it's not unusual to see old people with "double names" stemming from an old farm house, and usually with contradicting gender, many farms had female names for some reason

[@Mnnvint]

A couple of steps back in my mother's family, they changed last names three generations in a row. This was because they were younger sons, who didn't inherit, but managed to acquire farms by marriage and took their wife's name (because it was the farm's name). There aren't that many farms left to an unwed daughter every generation, and those women probably weren't lacking for suitors. My maternal grandfathers must have been a charming bunch.

[@Heavy-metaaal]

Very good explanation. Simple names and easy to use. I would like to find the my countries' names origins.

[@TheItalianoAssassino]

Solheim sounds like a nice one

[@SIZModig]

I'd also like to point out that all generations that I know of in my family have had middle names, meaning they got them prior to 1982 as well. Perhaps the Act made it easier or made them legal or whatnot, but middle names were probably common before that. Several middle names even, I think two-to-three middle names were more common then than they were since the Act of 1982 from what I've seen.

[@johnlastname8752]

I have 3 middle names, but I was born in 97.

[@SicMvndvsCreatvsEst8]

My parents have one middle name and me and my sister who were born in the 00s have two.

[@stoferb876]

I have the same observation. From what I've glanced from my own genealogy middle names goes way back. They are not that unusual in the 18th century. They rapidly become more and more common amongst the lower classes (most of my ancestors) during the 19th century. So yes in the beginning of the 19th century a lot of people that aren't middle or upper class don't have middle names. But towards the late 19th century it seems almost everyone has middle names. So it appears that the Act of 1982 is about a century too late.

[@Mannhovf]

In my family most people have one or two middle names going back 350 to 400 years, the common theme seem to be that a son was given their grandfathers name and a daughter was given their grandmothers name.

[@johanj3674]

I'm a '75 and all my classmates in school had middle names. Rather meeting someone that didn't was the oddity. My parents are the '40s generation, and my grandparents 1910/20s, and they all had middle names.

[@SicMvndvsCreatvsEst8]

My dads parents and the other adults in the family at the time, changed their name when he was in his teens in the 70s 80s from Andersson, the most common name in Sweden, to bumblebee or horsefly in gotländska, which is the dialect my uncle's wife speaks. Now we have a name which no one else has except some norwegian island. My mothers grandparents also came up with a rare name. They were called Svensson which nowadays is the most joked about name of them all. It is called the "typical swede" name lol. Anyway, they lived by a stream and changed it to Svensån bc it's like our stream "Sven's stream" kinda.

[@TheItalianoAssassino]

Babe wake up, new Swedish surname just dropped

[@TurboAutist-sg7lo]

I actually am swedish and come from a VERY long line of swedishmen. What is so interesting is that my familys last name ”Nobelius” comes from a villages name. You mentioned that people sometimes changed their names to the villages or towns they lived in, well my greatgreatgreatgreat grandpa did so. It was a village in Skåne (the southern part of Sweden) and the town name was like ”nobeli” or ”nobelis” the actual name has been long forgotten and the town either doesnt exist anymore or has been swallowed up by a bigger closer towns name. Nonetheless it is very interesting that you mentioned it because my family has direct history to that event.

[@J069FIX]

Speaking of Sweden's Eastern neighbour that has a Swedish-speaking majority and a long history as part of Sweden, Finland curiously has mostly gotten rid of patronyms and matronyms. They are still around and are legal, don't get me wrong, but it is far more common to find Finns with a surname relating to a place: e.g. Jokinen (joki is river and -nen is usually denominative of person, so Riverperson it is!) and Mäkelä (place/ village near or on a hill (Mäki) and even Savolainen (which can serve both as a last name and as the designation of any Finn hailing from the region of Savo).

[@jorgehaswag7294]

I knew someone in America whose parents invented the surname “moonrising” cause neither wanted to take the other’s name

[@Alias_Anybody]

Meanwhile in Germany: "You are also called Müller?" "YES brother"

[@Mnnvint]

There are a lot of profession-based last names in Britain too (like Miller, Smith and Taylor), but there are very few profession names in Norway or Sweden that I can think of. There is Møller, but if you're named that you probably have a German grandparent!

[@karinlindhagen8571]

You missed 3 common types of Swedish names used since the 17th century or earlier. Clergy toften took latinate surnames, such as Linneaus. Middle class were fond of nature related names like Lindberg (Lyme Hill). Soldiers were given short names like Rask (Quick). All those became inherited family names and have survived until the present.

[@gruu]

This is very true. Many of my Swedish friends have last names unique to them but still sound super swedish and describe either landscapes, animals or tied to old placenames

[@prapanthebachelorette6803]

I find that brilliant

[@benjaminprietop]

I'm from Chile, many people from my country emigrated to Sweden during the Pinochet dictatorship, and of course brought their names with them, which is why is not that uncommon to see Spanish names in some parts of the country, like director Daniel Espinosa. I wonder if this law affected them in some way.

[@drzoidnilsson73]

Probably not much. People migrating to Sweden and bringing foreign names have since old days been another thing. The demand on that has been "please write your names with a version of Latin characters (if it is not already) and indicate what is your last name and your primary surname and that is it. Then your kids will have to live with what you indicated as last name. Thus there will be a lot of last names from around the world. BUT - when it comes to chaining the last name (foreign or not or creating a new one) - the rules apply the same for all "lately" as described in the video. But the Spanish names that was popular in Chile with those who fled from Pinochet was probably already mostly already in quite some use in Sweden by migrants from other Spanish speaking countries.

[@phil..rubi123]

9:22 as a latino-swede (second generation) I can confirm that the rules that came 2016 meant a lot for many latinos here in sweden, aka the law to be able to have double last names/2 last names. Something that all spanish speakers have around the world.

[@drzoidnilsson73]

@@phil..rubi123 Good point about double last names. That almost exploded in popularity among the Swedish names too after 2016. Before Swedes sometimes cheated if the wanted to keep they own family name too. The moved and last name as to be registered as an extra surname and then changing last name. After the rules changed there was huge rise adding two "classic" Swedish last names together as one last name.

[@samwill7259]

God can you imagine how many english speakers would have the surnam johnson or jonson WHICH ARE ALREADY SOME OF THE MOST COMMON SURNAMES Yea, I can imagine that would turn into a shitshow

[@nafets87]

I also want to add that there is a bunch of old noble family names that is "secured" which mean that you can't just pick one of those for your new name with the exeception if you are related in any way.

[@Megadebt]

Interesting, sounds a lot like Japan during the Meiji Restoration. Prior to this, only noble families and aristocrats had surnames.

[@SchioAlves]

The process of veto could be of much use here in Brazil… land of a poor child named "Facebookson"

[@GhostBear3067]

That must have started after I emigrated because when I was born my parents had to make a fuss to use the English spelling of my name, which has a "H" that its Portuguese equivalent does not.

[@SchioAlves]

@@GhostBear3067 no, the rules are still the same (no "foreign" name or name that ridiculizes the child), but the problem is that there's no board taking care of it, it's fully up for the employ who is making the registration

[@diogodavid3557]

I'm Portuguese and proud to have a relatively rare name in a country filled with the same last names

[@GhostBear3067]

Everyone has at least one "Silva" and/or "da Silva" somewhere in the family tree.

[@GazilionPT]

We solved that problem by seldom having just one surname; juxtaposing surnames (2-4) from both sides of the family guarantees a bit more diversity.

[@GazilionPT]

@@GhostBear3067 As far as I could find (and in some branches I went very far, back to the late 1500s), I don't. The closest I could find was one Domingos da Silva (d. 1688), the husband of one of my 8th-great-grandmothers (Maria de Mesquita), but I descend from a son Maria de Mesquita had after becoming a widow, to a man she was not married to. But I may indeed have tons of Silvas somewhere in my tree, because I have numerous cases of "unknown father", and some branches of the family are cut short for lack of documents or because the info is so incomplete it's just not possible to proceed with a minimum of certainty.

[@marna_li]

Patronyms (-sson, -dotter) do lose their function as society grows bigger by getting more connected. So that is why family names as surnames did catch on. In order to distinguish soldiers with *sson-names they were given unique surnames (Björk - Birch, Lundström etc) that they often took as their family name. In most cases they turned the patronym into a family name and used as surname. Others they made up their own family names in the likeness of that of nobility's based on some place or geographic feature that they feel connection to (Sjöholm, Larsgård). That continues still to this day. And not uncommon that some couples opt to take the woman's surname. There are also people choosing patronyms for their children (-sson, -dotter). Some who combine patronym (middlename) with a family name (surname). In the north it is not uncommon to be referred to by the name of their estate or farm. That usually carries over to people not originally related to the original family owning it. However this is not used i official documents.

[@sabrasabranise3335]

True power is to type your name in Facebook and see only yourself.

[@frste26]

My last name is unique even within my family, because I got tired of having a 'middle name' so I combined my middle name and last name to form one new name so my parents were finally on equal footing. Hated being called by only one of my names instead of both.

[@knightatyourservice7512]

That thumbnail gave me "Let Me Do It For You" vibes

[@eddiekry8479]

I have a unique last name “Kry (brisk, well or fit in English)” that dates back to 17 century were it was common for soldier to get names that described the soldier in a way and my name is exclusively to my family

[@Cythil]

Patronyms (and the rare Matronyms) were the norm for larger parts of Sweden as an unofficial surname. But that depend a lot on where you lived to. In some regions, names had other structures. Like being related to which homestead you were from. And while solider names were one of those more official surnames that start to show up along with the nobility, there were others that took surname too with time. Usually city dwellers that wanted to mimic nobility, but likely also as a way to stand out in a city. There is quite a lot to how Swedish names developed.

[@warlord95Sweden]

My Great great grandfather changed his last name from Thor to Thorén. He did this because the name Thor was a knektnamn (soldier name) that was given to our ancestors. And he didn't want a name being connected to war so he added én on the end.

[@happyswedme]

A thing I think you could have lifted is that if a man has a common name and marries a woman with a uncommon one there is a roughly 80% chance the man will take his wives name which raises a few eyebrows in other western countries

[@denniswingerstad9424]

Dottir is not Swedish, Dotter is the Swedish version

[@modmaker7617]

I think -dóttir is Icelandic not Swedish

[@HannahHäggAutisticTransWoman]

@@modmaker7617 it is.

[@HannahHäggAutisticTransWoman]

Dottir is Icelandic and dotter is Swedish

[@algotkristoffersson15]

@@HannahHäggAutisticTransWoman Well dottir is also Swedish, but like early Swedish from the time of the Vikings.

[@josh0g]

There are legal and civil complications that come with overly common names in modern times. Especially in the digital age. Traditions where no family name is used simply become complicated.

[@GustavSvard]

Such issues are why we all have ID numbers here in Sweden. Which does have a gender-indicator in it, which has caused major headaches for trans people.

[@Odyssey2003]

Sweden looks like a Borzoi on the title picture

[@DiMadHatter]

will you do a video on the rules for creating swedish names? that could be interseting :)

[@HannahHäggAutisticTransWoman]

My name is Hannah Hägg. Hägg is also Swedish for the tree called bird-cherry (Prunus padus).

[@otterpng]

Nowadays one of the most common last name formats is the nature names. For example berggren (mountain branch) or like hällström (rockface river).

[@Frogglefr]

When your name is not anywhere on google...

[@walterl322]

In my country we have a wide diversity of surnames, most are latvian that usually translate into something like mountain, birch, oak, etc., there are also some more really old baltic surnames that are older than latvian as a language, those are rare tho, but we also have a wide variety of german, jewish, polish, russian, romani and yes, sewdish surnames (sometimes italian and french too, mine apparently is of germanic origin with possible french influences, there aren't many people with my surname here, but apparently in Belgium there are thousands of people with the same surname)... anyway, we have a different problem cuz some of the latvian surnames are kinda inappropriate, one of the more textbook inappropriate surnames is literally just the latvian word for piss: Čuriņa (technically piss would just be čura or as an action it would be čurāt, čurā (present tense), čurās (future), čurāja (past), etc., but the ending -iņa is one of the endings for a specific form of a word which doesn't have an equivalent in english, think of it as the cute form, like if you see a rabbit, but it's a cute rabbit, or maybe a baby rabbit, you wouldn't say zaķis, you'd say zaķēns or zaķītis... also you can cutify any noun, literally any) I got way off topic, I mean, I hope someone finds my info dump amusing...

[@TheFlyfly]

adding "-ie" to the end of a word is how you make it "cuter" in English, i believe👍 ("nuggie", "blankie", "feeties")

[@walterl322]

@@TheFlyfly I mean, kinda, but it's not the same, latvian certainly seems to have a longer tradition of making words sound cute😂 Also, in latvian we fully exploit this linguistic quirk, whereas it's much less common in english and not all words can be cutified, like babie rabbit wouldn't be rabbie, kinda sounds like rabies, it's much more common to indicate the level of cuteness by the tone and additional words like babie or little before rabbit

[@panzrok8701]

@@walterl322 You can also do that in German by adding "lein" or "chen" to the end of the pretty much all nouns expect foreign ones. Hase (Rabbit) becomes "Häschen" or "Häslein".

[@Alias_Anybody]

They are called Diminutives. Most European languages apart from English have them, that's why English speakers sometimes try to work around that with -ie as an unofficial suffix or a pseudo-prefix like " Lil' ".

[@bryanbrathwaite]

why... i cant unsee borzoi sweden now

[@NinjaCarson]

There are 2 Elias Pettersson's playing for the Vancouver Canucks in the NHL

[@andchi2000]

Fun fact: There's a guy named "Super Mario" (as "mellannamn") in Sweden. We also have a Targaryen.

[@martinfalkjohansson5204]

Nej, det är ett förnamn. Mellannamn enligt svensk lag var/är ett efternamn som ligger före det faktiska efternamnet, men som inte kan ärvas. Man fick det om man hade ogifta föräldrar t.ex., men det var även vanligt att kvinnor som gifte sig behöll sitt mödomsnamn som mellannamn och tog makens som efternamn.

[@fighttheevilrobots3417]

Many Sephardic Jewish names begin with "Ben" meaning "son of" For example: "Benforma" , basically "son of the paperwork"

[@mellertid]

Surnames are also a place to keep w, q and z, letters rarely used otherwise in Swedish. It's usually just a way to stylize v, k and s.

[@WarriorCrunch]

I don't know how rare my current last name is. but i know my family changed it sometime in the late 1800's from Blomster to Malmquist.

[@primus6677]

I'm learning Swedish rn

[@88marome]

My grandad's family had a son-name but changed it to a unique name that looks Swedish but everyone misspells it😮‍💨

[@moseskfrost]

*Dòttir, if I may, but that spelling has for long been archaized, and has been spelled «dotter» for a few centuries. «Dòttir» is the correct Icelandic spelling, though, I would believe.

[@totitokatta123]

Yes Box I just made up some- Urdsbjörn Stålhammar, Svardir Åkforne, örjge Yxskaldne, Eskarl draupgågne. I dont think that they are real names, just made up if you dont have a unique name 🤣

[@swededude1992]

I checked a list of Swedens last names. The most common foregin last name is Ali, on 35:th place. 2:nd: Ahmed, 59:th place. 3:rd: Mohammed, 70:th place. 4:th: Hassan, 91:st place 5:th: Ibrahim, 98:th place.

[@TheZebinator]

"then something happened in the 90s" - Lotuseaters crew

[@swededude1992]

@@TheZebinator That don't say me anything. I don't know.

[@kiwi6220]

Oh that’s cool! Interesting, Thanks for checking

[@ryledra6372]

I'm still a little sad that when I changed my last name, I didn't go for MacMichael D:

[@WealthyOhio]

0:14 bro missed gotland

[@sandradermark8463]

Our paternal family changed its surname from Andersson to Dermark. At the turn of last century. They're Gothenburgers.

[@goraningesson3938]

I can never not luagh when I hear Göteborg being called Gothemburg

[@huhhuh9598]

@@goraningesson3938 Heh, Gott'emburg

[@ajwinberg]

I remember an interview with Alexander Skardgard talking about how his families last used to be Neilson and his grandfather and Great uncle changed it to Skarsgard to have a unique name...or something like that. I am happy to hear that this was an actual thing. Lol.😅

[@xlaxelnoreen]

Hahahaha WTF. Did not expect my grand grandfather to just sudently pop up in the video. (Adolf Noreen ). Didnt know he was that popular.

[@Vazlist]

I was born and raised with my lastname being a patronym (an actual one, not a family name disguised as a patronym), but changed it some ten or so years ago

[@isakferm7686]

I thought that my name was quite unique, but apparently not. Because when I booked my train ticket one day but then I got a phone call from another person that was named “Isak Ferm”. I said it was impossible, so I said my middle name which I rarely use and then realized that I accidentally misspelled my email address 😅. Luckily, he only got the receipt and didn’t have to pay it.

[@LeonardoMenezes03]

I have three names and there's dozens of people with the exactly same name of mine. In my city though, everyone with my last name are related.

[@Ominous_Walrus]

Its great being early to a name explain video.

[@theresemalmberg955]

My father's ancestors came from Halsingland in the mid-19th century and were farmers who settled in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The story goes that the Malmberg surname came about when a large group of ironworkers from the Low Countries were invited to come make cannon for one of the Swedish kings (probably Gustavus Adolphus). All of these people then took the name Malmberg (iron mountain). While this name is common in Minnesota it is not in Michigan. I was told that the Malmbergs that settled around Crystal Falls are most likely not related to other Malmbergs in Michigan or in Minnesota; and in fact, my brother's sons are the only ones left of that line to carry on the name. I am a member of the Vasa Order of America and some years back I reached out to them for more information on the story behind the Malmberg family name. Apparently no one else had heard this particular story, so I have no way of verifying it.

[@krazykris9396]

This the reverse of the galton-Watson process. I think a more extreme example of there being too few last names is veitnam. About 40 % of Vietnamise have the last name Nguyen.

[@monikabredesen4273]

Totally awesome video. Please do Norwegian last names too

[@AndreasLindholm]

We also have the soldier names: blank, rask,

[@cajsa8606]

My great grandfather changed his last name from Mattsson to Wilen, because it sounded way cooler with his fist name Wilhelm

[@panzrok8701]

In Germany its almost impossible to change your name. You are only allowed to change it if you get in trouble because of it.

[@FoggyD]

My little sister and brother-in-law aren't Swedish but still revived an old surname when they got married. I don't think many Swedes are likely to be called 'Petersen' - their equivalent of that name is usually "Persson".

[@martinjohansson7365]

Öh Pettersson menar du väl?

[@Zeraph-Zen]

Per is actually an entirely separate name! So Persson would quite literally be Per's son. The equivalent of Petersen in Swedish is Petersson, Peter's son.

[@FoggyD]

Doesn't answer my question. Can you name a famous Swede called Peter or Petersson? The Catalan form of Pedro is Pere. Pedro is in turn the Spanish equivalent of Peter. They are the same name.

[@Zeraph-Zen]

@@FoggyD You did not state a question in any way, you just made an incorrect claim. Peter and Per are two separate names which may or may not have some shared history, that is all.

[@FoggyD]

Yes, I did not pose a question in my original comment. Nonetheless, having received some pushback against that, I have now put out two queries in follow-up comments and got no satisfactory response I am going to presume that my initial statement was correct.

[@kevinsomething3096]

I don't have the problem with my last name being common. My last name only has 3 people who can pass it along (traditionally). Me being one of them. :P

[@trien30]

Maybe it's time to use a name similar in meaning to O'Brien in Scottish or Irish Gaelic meaning "the grandson of Brian." P.S. Is "doen" an English word? No more "Stockholm syndrome" but "last name syndrome" now? It beats me to know my Norwegian relatives' last name in Norwegian Bokmål & English are ten times so very very very much more different than you would have thought.

[@mr.strawberry13]

Meanwhile in czechia every other person is named "novák" or "dvořák". I love the concept of a surname being something unique, but in a place where every other guy is a petr dvořák or a vojtěch novák that isn't possible.

[@iksRoald]

Before the 18hundres, both Sweden and Norway had mostly the personal, forename, unless you belonged to a noble family, which you could in Sweden, not in Norway, which was given as war spoil to Sweden after the Napoleonic wars, in 1814. So during our common union, the Swedish authorities decided that all members of a family should have the same last, family, name. In Norway that ment that a lot of families now was named …-sen, even the females, and even if they had the old farm names which told where they lived, traditionally. This may also have been made easier for the authorities when more people moved to town and cities, or around the country, which would otherwise have made them change their last name. - Name laws in Norway have been changed in several times since we got our freedom in 1905.

[@Sakuraid]

That's weird if, middle names was introduced in 1982 then I guess my grandparents were early with theirs. Even my parents born by the end of 1960s in Sweden had both middle names.

[@TheZebinator]

same here, even my grandparents have middle names and they were born on the late 30s early 40s. I'm not totally sure but my great grandparents might even had middle names, can't remember tho

[@NotASummoner]

Yeah, my great grandparents had middle names and they were born in like the 1890s

[@martinfalkjohansson5204]

No, you're confusing our practise of having several forenames (förnamn) with actual middlenames (mellannamn). The name you are adressed by is called "tilltalsnamn". Middle names in Sweden could only be surnames, so it was a way to have more than one surname. In common parlance people do not use the correct legal definition of names, and call tilltalsnamn förnamn, and call the other förnamn for middle names.

[@Sakuraid]

@@martinfalkjohansson5204 rather than being confused it is what I've learned. I'm a 98 kid and through all my childhood the 2nd "forename"(förnamn) had always been called middle name (mellannamn). I have never hear that having two surnames (efternamn) makes one of them middle name (mellannamn). But if what you is saying in your comment is true then I have learned something new. But even then I'm going to stick with what I have learned while growing up in this case.

[@martinfalkjohansson5204]

@@Sakuraid Confuse does not always mean "förvirrad" but can also mean "blandade ihop" or "missta sig". In common parlance (dagligt tal) almost everyone does this. I mentioned it mostly because I think the video is about the legal definition, that only came to exist in the 80'ies, and thus he isn't wrong. Skatteverket categorises what you call mellannamn as förnamn. I personally have 3 of them. Martin is my tilltalsnamn, and thus appears in bold on my ID card. I would say that a majority of Swedes do not know the legal definition of a middle name, nor that what they call middle names are actually fornames.

[@puppetguy8726]

When you say mellannamn most Swedish refer to your second (and third name). Few people know what the real mellannamn is and it's not that common to have.

[@黄色ちゃん-e6u]

I remember our family having a few choices to pick from when it came to last names, but since we have scottish heritage the surname ended up being so unique that everyone thinks I’m from brittish origin. It’s quite pretty too so I’m happy it. But on the other hand… one of our choices was McDonald. I could’ve been a walking ad 😅 It’s interesting, some of these facts I weren’t even aware of.

[@AndreasLindholm]

Well McDonald is a really old clan. 12th century

[@martinjohansson7365]

Öh Peter is russian(PJOTR) Swedish kings are called karl, gustaf, erik, johan

[@Mnnvint]

Peter is Greek, and a literal translation of the old Aramaic name Kefa, which also means "rock". Pierre, Per, Petrus, Sten, Stein are also variants. You can thank Jesus for popularizing the name, Russians just jumped on the trend.

[@doncarlodivargas5497]

Something really really annoying, is, people with common names "changing" them by putting in additional letters of different random kinds, making it almost impossible to know how to write their names because those stupid letters usually are silent, so the name sounds ordinary, but then there is a dubbel t or a random h in there, it make me so annoyed

[@_loss_]

We used to be Svensson. Thank God that changed.

[@parllax]

You should check Vietnamese names there only around 200 unique names

If I move to Sweden some day, my last name will be Fittansikte.

[@DJPJ.]

My step Sister and her man made their own lastname as a combination of their old lastnames. The new lastname looks very Swedish, but nether of them are from Sweden.

[@MuriKakari]

Why get annoyed, Sweden? Beat that 'same name' convention record instead.

[@emperorthybal5224]

I am proud to say that I am the only person (other than the rest of my family) to have my last name, I would say it here if not for the fact that one quick google search would instantly reveal my entire family.

[@dontedward]

Middle names were a thing long before 1982 i'll tell ya

[@martinfalkjohansson5204]

Nopes. In Sweden we have several förnamn, so you're confusing midde names with förnamn.

[@dontedward]

@@martinfalkjohansson5204 samma sak i folkmun, men enligt lagen har du ju så rätt!

[@Shiraori999]

Well, thanks to having double lastnames 1 being made up in the 20th century. I can say that my name is unique

[@sandybarnes887]

A middle name video sounds good to me

[@catriamflockentanz]

About Names being protected: My german family name contains an "äck". That's technically _impossible_ . Why? An "ä" is always a long vowel. An "ck" makes the previous vowel short. The issue is obvious. Yet the name is quite old and as such treated like it was an "eck" albeit that's not the case at all.

[@tamu7243]

in Slavic surnames, like in Russia, masucline -ov, feminine -ova also mean "son/daughter of". Like Ivanov means Son of Ivan. In Southern Slavic, like Serbian it's -vić. Ivanović is Son of Ivan in Serbian. In Swedish it would be Jonsson (yes, Ivan and John is thought to be the same name). So having surnames after your father is pretty common all over Europe, not only Germanic speaking countries.

[@veggiet2009]

the length of this video is so leet!

[@zaco-km3su]

Very interesting!

[@MrPillowStudios]

Then, how do you tell which family they came from?

[@donatodiniccolodibettobardi842]

I never really identified with my name. Or any name for that matter. That's why I use dozens upon dozens of nicknames online. Although, a few have became my de facto names for this or that group of people and thus important for me because they are important to the people who are important to me. And only strictly within the context. Without it names becomes just sounds again. But my birth name is fifferent. I never felt any affinitity or attachment to it. It could've been any arbitrary combination of sounds.

[@hglundahl]

9:43 Lundahl cannot be taken. It has only 1000 bearers, not 2000.

[@Mnnvint]

In Norway the limit is 500 bearers... and technically, you can still take the name, if you get permission from ALL of them.

[@hglundahl]

@@Mnnvint I am however a Swede.

[@mikaelvalter-lithander1247]

Do you mean Lereslöv and Eslöv?

[@SwedishDrunkard5963]

I can legaly change my name to Napoleon. And i can tecnicly change it to Vasa.

[@aidenbooksmith2351]

The fact that you haven't changed it to Napoleon is shameful! DO IT!

[@tresforbe]

Handenstein

[@SerunaXI]

The English with middle names go brrr.

[@bolle9810]

6:11 Don't see why Adolf should be considered "poorly aged"just because a failed Austrian painter had it does not mean it has bad connotations, You don't get nervous shaking hand with someone named Leapold now do you?

[@cpt_nordbart]

My name is exceptionally common. There are even wikipedia entires for it. Yay.... I hate it

[@gavini1738]

Proud that I am the only person on earth with my name 💪

[@Jayvee4635]

Nathanael Bar Tulmay (Bartholomew)

[@phosphoros60]

Actually, you know... why don't we all do this? Like at least if you marry and wanna build a brand new family, why don't you start with a new family name? Popes do it, artists do it, monks or nuns joining an order do it... why not get a new name for a new part of your life?