When the Government Makes You Get a Surname

A look at the development of modern surnames in Sweden. It's actually pretty interesting if you ask me.
Note this is not an exhaustive history of surnames in Europe, or even in Sweden.
Sources:
Hedberg, J. (2021). Svenska efternamnsbyten 1920-1944. Bloggen New trends in Nordic Socio-onomastics.
Larsson, I. (2013) Namn och namnforskning. Ett levande läromedel om ortnamn, personnamn och andra namn. Ed. by Staffan Nyström (main ed.), Eva Brylla & al. Version 1. Uppsala.
Noreen, Erik & Adolf. (1907). Svenska familjenamn vid början av 1900-talet. Alfabetisk förteckning jämte statistiska och andra bilagor. Stockholm: Aktiebolaget Ljus.
Ryman, L. (2013) Namn och namnforskning. Ett levande läromedel om ortnamn, personnamn och andra namn. Ed. by Staffan Nyström (main ed.), Eva Brylla & al. Version 1. Uppsala.
Utterström. (1985). Släktnamn. Tillkomst och spridning i norrländska städer. Kungliga skytteanska samfundets handlingar, 29. Umeå: Nyheternas tryckeri.
Willson, K. (2012). Linguistic Models and Surname Diversification Strategies in Denmark and Sweden. Onoma, 47, 299-326.
Lag om personnamn. (SFS 2016:1013) §29 Gårdsnamn.
Chapters:
0:00 - Early Swedish "efternamn"
1:36 - What Surnames did Commoners Have?
4:02 - The Politics of Surnames
6:16 - Made-Up Surnames
6:58 - Ending & Credits
Written and Created by Me
Art by kvd102
Music by P. Almond
Thanks to my patrons!!
Patreon: www.patreon.com/user?u=73482298
Translations:
Mias - Portuguese
Leeuwe van den Heuvel - Dutch
pluiedev (w/ help from Anqi Chen) - Standard Mandarin
уля - Ukrainian
Le Napolitain - French

[@arvidg8547]

One thing that you didn't touch on in this video that I think some might find interesting is the history of swedish soldier surnames (soldatnamn)

[@kklein]

yes, like "Modig" meaning "brave", to describe the attributes of that soldier. Imma pin this comment for discussion, and it was actually in the original script for the video, but I ended up cutting it out lol

[@ZenobiaSE]

Yes exactly! I was hoping it was going to be brought up. I'm really into family research and have quite a few soldier names on my dad's side of the family.

[@fannie255]

it’s actually really cool. Most people I know with unique Swedish last names have soldatnamn, myself included

[@ShallowContrarian]

Soldatnamn are weird, some of them became first names over time, and some (like mine) seem like borgarnamn until you research the origins. Traveller names are also worth bringing up, surprisingly common.

[@emilekroth100]

Yeah, I believe that my last name is a soldatnamn. Not sure tho.

[@williamlee3520]

“Wow that’s a really unique surname, what’s the source?” “Our source is that we made it the fuck up.”

[@jarls5890]

Interesting to note is that surnames based on vocation or profession is as good as completely absent from Scandinavia. As a Norwegian...I don't think I can even come up with a single one. No Potter. No Smith. No Cooper. No Carpenter. No Tanner. Yet the Germans have loads of these: Doepfer, Schmidt, Fassbender, Gerber, etc.

[@EhThisIsAGoodName]

@@jarls5890 might be because Norwegians were more rurally split apart, like, people from the middle of the thick part, didn't really interact much with people from the southern coast, so instead, Norway has a lot of very similar place names being used for surnames all over the place. Viken Aasen Lund Berg

[@mikemondano3624]

All names are made up. And who ever asks a person's name's source?

[@mikemondano3624]

@@jarls5890 Is they?

[@jarls5890]

@@mikemondano3624 I assume you mean "are they?". Still, I am not sure what your question is!

[@saddasish]

It's funny how the 3% of people in that telephone registry had Andersson as the surname is of note, as about 39% of Vietnamese people have Nguyễn as the family name and no change has been done about it hahaha

[@MrCrazyeyes07]

I mean… historically Vietnam had a lot more shit to deal with and we’re probably a little more preoccupied.

[@deadweight2121]

Well it's already pretty convenient in Vietnam's case. Kids always have the exact same surname as their father's

[@schuetzer]

Vietnamese call each other by given name, which we have plenty of, so there isn’t any needs to require new surnames.

[@saddasish]

@@schuetzer I wonder if the tendency of calling each other by given name was due to the lack of variety in surnames

[@schuetzer]

@@saddasish Maybe. It's might be like a chicken and egg problem though.

[@vilgothellgren1609]

You forgot the largest share of surnames: Nature names. More people are called Lindgren and Björkfors and such then any thing else. They are often mad up of two features from the place you came from. Maybe a oak by your house or a lake with some other feature.

[@jdsonical]

big Japanese surname energy right there

[@ijemand5672]

than anything else*

[@mimimurlough]

Those are really interesting. I've heard that they were part of the name reform ("so what do we call ourselves?" "I dunno, look out the window"), but I don't know for sure

[@diakritika]

The Björkforce is strong with this one.

[@RannonSi]

If I remember that episode of Språket (i P1) correctly, that type of surname is rather unique to Sweden.

[@TheMrMe1]

It's kinda funny how Icelandic went the opposite way. I'm not just talking about keeping the patronymics either. In the late 19th century, taking up a danish-style family name was all the rage in Iceland. It was mostly done by higher status citizens, but was still very common. This made quite a few people afraid that the patronymic system, used since the middle ages, would slowly be lost. And so a law was passed forbidding the creation and adoption of new family names. Those who had had their name changed before the law went into effect got to keep their new names and their offspring got to inherit them, but other than that, all Icelanders were legally mandated to use a patronym.

[@bigscarysteve]

Except for Vladimir Ashkenazy.

[@ShallowContrarian]

This can funnily enough cause some oddities, I have a different surname in Iceland than I do in Sweden and I know others in the same situation.

[@Old_Harry7]

Wait, so Icelandic people change their name from generation to generation? How does their records keep up with it?

[@olivenkranz]

@@Old_Harry7 That's the neat part, they don't.

[@evannibbe9375]

@@Old_Harry7 You use the Biblical method of keeping track of who is who: keep a record of the line of fathers before you back to either Babylon or Abraham.

[@nilsbrasar6405]

I’m from Dalarna and my family still has a gårdsnamn. It’s really cool seeing it brought up here!

[@TheLunkan22]

hahaha vafan det är ju du!!! Leksand represent!!

[@nilsbrasar6405]

@@TheLunkan22 nämen vafan kul o se dig här hahhaha

[@hansi9927]

Storgården represent

[@manfredstenman8185]

Samma här, bor i Norrbotten men morsan växte upp i Dalarna och vi har kvar släktmarken där. :D

[@GratDuForloradeArgumentet]

never heard of it and im Swedish

[@johnlastname8752]

My great-grandfather was named Anderson. Problem was that when he did his military service there were 3 Anderson with the same first name. Since he was the youngest he had to change his last name, and now there's ~30 people total in Sweden with that name (which I can't say since there's literally only 1 person in the world with my first and last name combo, so I would dox myself)

[@rynabuns]

John Lastname is certainly an interesting name!

[@decimusausoniusmagnus5719]

Is it Johan Andersson. No, no, wait. Anders Johansson.

[@chienbanane3168]

But we know your first name is John, that narrows it... ...moderatly

[@Ludovicus1769]

Very interesting backstory for your name, I too have one. One of my ancestors, great-great-great-great-grandfather or something, was simply one day found in a small village. And then he adopted the name of that village as his last name. Many generations later, and I still have it as my surname. Only members of my family have that surname, so if someone has it, I’d know I’m related to them somehow.

[@NicoleCzarnecki]

If it’s something involving “Andrejlowicz” or a name like it, you wouldn’t necessarily be doxxing yourself. Our side was “Andrulewicz”, and we’re Kohanim whom Ashkenazized our surname. Someone who used another variant immigrated to the US through Finland or Sweden.

[@jaykh.3322]

Thailand had a very similar surname law passed in 1913, with fairly strict rules about how they were to be created - they have to be no more than 10 letters (excluding vowels and diacritics) and must be absolutely unique to each family. As such, many Thais walk around with gibberish names (including me), but you can be sure that if someone has the same surname, they are definitely related!

[@La-meiga-celtibera]

Thai people definitely have weird last names.

[@zacharyyan4898]

It still doesn’t prevent Thai surnames from being incredibly long when romanized into English …

[@jaykh.3322]

@@zacharyyan4898 oh I know... mine is 14 letters long and the last 3 are silent...

[@jaykh.3322]

@@gregoryford2532 The point of Thai surnames is they must be absolutely unique to any other registered family name. Keep in mind names were completely made up after 1918, since before nobody had surnames, so they don't go back very far. So in modern times you cannot have somebody else's surname unless you are directly related to them or married.

[@xelaxander]

So every Thai just has an ID! So people could cave called themselves Dlgncsjpozgcy…

[@kacperwoch4368]

One aspect of the history of Swedish names seems completely opposite of what was the case in my home country of Poland: if you got a surname your were stuck with this exact name for eternity. For this reason some people have funny or even offensive sounding names (eg. Burak, lit. "Bumpkin"), others carry German names after that one random forgotten ancestor from centuries ago (like Mann, Krüger or Joergen)

[@liimlsan3]

One thing that was very common during these name change policies (and also, immigrants at border crossings) was officials who would give you a cruel or embarrassing name, and ask for a bribe to change it to something that wouldn't get you laughed at. Bill Bryson cites the urban legend that Barry Goldwater's ancestors went through a couple border crossings, because the first official changed their name to "Piss."

[@ellie8272]

@@liimlsan3 Goldwater deserved it tbh

[@kizzo7002]

It happens in many countries in this example in Poland where you had a German ancestor named Müller we'd simply make it Miller (read Meeler) or Muller (read Miller [not as the same as above, but in English pronunciation] or Mooller)

[@PLKartofel]

isn't Burak ''Beetroot''?

[@julianshepherd2038]

Retain had a lot of odd a d rude names but they seem to have disappeared. Not so many Balls about these days and no Mr Ploppy at all

[@ACMH98]

When my paternal grandparents were gonna get married my grandmother REFUSED to go under the last name Karlsson. Grandpa wanted to take her last name, Sandegren, but in the 50s this was not allowed. So they looked up their ancestry and chose an island from where my grandfather's family is from. They wanted to change the spelling but it was deemed too German at the time so they were allowed to use the island name as is. So we're only 15 people in the entire world with this last name hahhaha. A lot of Swedes can't pronounce it but my mom once ran into a man who's family is also from that island and wanted to take it as a last name but couldn't since we have it and so THEY got the spelling grandpa and grandma first came up with 😂😂😂 life is funny sometimes hahah

[@OrangeC7]

That is funny, Hahhaha. Thanks for sharing Edit: So I made this comment because I misread the sentence "So we're only 15 people in the entire world with this last name hahhaha." And I thought your last name was literally Hahhaha. Now I know that's not what you meant, but I'll keep the comment up so everyone can see my mistake and learn from my error.

[@j.malo-roper4050]

Oh that's so funny, my great-great-grandparents also had the names Sandgren and Carlsson (though with orthographic differences).

[@mattybrunolucaszeneresalas9072]

Can’t they change it now?

[@ACMH98]

@@mattybrunolucaszeneresalas9072 in Sweden with more traditional names, usually either the closest family members that could have it or people you're barely related to have to accept it. I'll give you an example - on my materal grandfather's side we have German ancestry. My mom's cousin wanted to take the German last name (that nobody had) but because it is a name used by people that are not our family in Sweden, and a sort-of fancy name in Germany (aka not common) she had to get my grandfather's and her mother's (grandpa's sister) signature to 1. Prove it was in the family 2. They said it was OK for her to use it. Sure it might be different as my paternal grandmother had that last name until she got married but I think it would be a bit of a hassle to get us all to change it. And honestly we used to joke in school that this last name was better cause we were higher up in the lists 😂

[@mattybrunolucaszeneresalas9072]

@@ACMH98 her mother was her fathers sister??

[@Gamefreak9686]

My Great Grandfather immigrated to the US in 1907 as a boy and my Grandpa used to tell stories about how the “King of Sweden forced everyone to change their last name cause there were too many with the same one”. It’s honestly awesome to find out there’s a lot of truth to what he used to tell us. My family went from Pettersson to Kullberg. I’m so happy I stumbled upon your video..

[@GratDuForloradeArgumentet]

A lot of people still has the son name, it is the most common name apart from nature-names. Or maybe even more common im not sure. It's either Naturenames or Son names 😂

[@Nighthunter006]

I'm Norwegian, and my surname is a fossilised farm name. My great great grandfather moved onto the farm as a tenant farmer, and took the name of the farm. Then when his son moved to the city in the early 1900s he kept the name. The result of this (and the fact that my grandfather only had sisters, who took their husbands' names) is that even though my surname isn't particularly common, I'm not related to anyone carrying apart from my father and siblings, since even if it's the same farm my ancestor was a tenant farmer and not related to the owners. The farm name itself is basically a description of the geography of the farm, basically "the seat (base) of a small prominent rocky hill". A lot of farm names were formed like this. One of the most common farm names, though, is some variation of Ødegård (lit. "abandoned farm"), which stems from the Black Death. Farms where everyone died (or so many that they abandoned the farm) were just called "the abandoned farm" by the locals, and when new residents moved in, typically tenants striking out, they came to be called Ødegård after the abandoned farm. The name is pretty common since almost every community had at least one farm abandoned after the Black Death.

[@fnorgen]

I find it particularly interesting how a lot of Norwegian family names are just broad geographic descriptions of the location of some farm, including my own last name. It's strange that my entire family is named after a little hill in the middle of nowhere where some dude cleared a new tiny little farm long ago, and then at one point that farm name became fossilized and spread all throughout the country. Actually, I think about half the people I know have similar geographically descriptive place names as last names. Especially in rural Norway a lot of very local generic sounding place names have a corresponding family named after that place.

[@rateeightx]

My grandma's family is Norwegian, And I believe her surname came from a farm too! Well, Either that, Or the farm was named after the family. It appears to be just a simple adjective (Although I don't really speak Norwegian, So I could be wrong), Which could likely be describing the farm.

[@svampen7782]

Lemme guess, the name was Nighthunter?

[@biaberg3448]

@@rateeightx What was her surname? I’m Norwegian and might know the meaning of the name.

[@rateeightx]

@@biaberg3448 The name was "Grov", From what I can tell it means Course or Rough, Although I'm not sure if that's where the surname comes from.

[@eljestLiv]

Funny how you touch upon the name Waernulf, a name that 33 people in all of Sweden have, and my boyfriend's ex just happens to be one of them. Small world!

[@khalidalotaibi1072]

In Arab culture, we carry all of our ancestors' names with us so if someone named Ahmed and his father is Ali whose father is Omar, his name would be Ahmed son of* Ali son of Omar. And it goes back until Adam or unremembered time**. Our family names are based on prominent people in our bloodline or their nickname. I have 9 family names but use AlOtaibi the furthest ancestor (the tribe’s name) because almost everyone who set foot in Arabia heard of my tribe(we are over a million). I only use my other family names for someone closer to me to elaborate more. The government uses the most prominent and one below if needed in passports. When applying for jobs at companies they only use the most prominent one My tribe is one of the nomadic tribes but others settled in cities or farmland and lost their tribes name and used family names based on their city or one of their ancestors’ jobs like smith or carpenter. *the phrase [son of] was used in the past but now it's normally just a string of names except for government documents or the names of historical figures or important people like the royal family. ** I have a friend who has a paper that states all of his ancestors until a famous person from the 600s who can be easily traced back even further.

[@Ossian-dr1vr]

wow cool!

[@Banom7a]

> famous person from the 600 Muhammad?

[@khalidalotaibi1072]

@@Banom7a No, a lot less famous. I forgot who he is but he is recorded in some history books.

[@JabrHawr]

in IDs the government in Saudi normally uses 4-part names for Saudi citizens; x y z surname. i know because i worked with this stuff for very long. interestingly you say: >>The government uses the most prominent and one below if needed in passports. huh, so only three parts? Arab countries that mostly do three parts for their citizens are only Syria and Lebanon.

[@mahnas92]

@@JabrHawr and palestinians too if I am not mistaken. Isn't it a levantine thing?

[@rparl]

At the height of the bicentennial, my boss, Mr.Nolberg, received an offer to research the "ancient and noble name of Nolberg." He pointed out that his great grandfather had invented the name because he and another Swede kept getting each other's mail, since it was addressed to General Delivery, Sacramento California. They were both mining for gold. So his ancestor decided to use a different name than any he'd ever seen and wrote back Sweden telling his relatives to use this new name. They all thought it was a great idea and changed their names as well. According to him, the church along with the government developed a list of Swedish sounding names which were guaranteed unique and both assisted with the transition. So he didn't need to pay $50 for anyone to research the "ancient and noble name of Nolberg." And for another $50 you could get a coat of arms developed just for you!

[@musicaloats]

Delighted to see the return of French Onion Man and to be reassured that my family aren't the only ones making up their surnames (even if a good 100 or so years behind the trend)

[@kklein]

based

[@nuke19491]

I’ve researched my Swedish ancestors’ names (my grandmother and her family came to the US in 1905). At the time I was searching, many of the record books were scanned but not transcribed. Learning to decipher Swedish handwriting from the last 200+ years was a treat

[@kathyastrom1315]

Isn’t it fun! Those records at the official state archive website are just so cool to look at. I bought a Swedish genealogy book in English to help decipher the forms and give research tips.

[@onomatopoetisk]

Did you come far with your research?

[@mendicius_jade]

That "name book" thing was also implemented here in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial rule. That also explains why lots of Filipinos nowadays have Spanish surnames albeit don't necessarily have Spanish ancestry. Native Indios (brown-skinned Malays) had to choose from those surnames.

[@PHlophe]

i thought the spanish surnames meant they were descendants of spanish too . compared to neighbouring asian nations. Filpinoes look a bit mixed ( to me at least ) so i just assumed everyone had 2 or 3 spanish relatives.

[@gagamba9198]

Yes, about 70%, split roughly equal between existing Spanish surnames (used in Spain) and Spanish words for places, things, etc.. The book is the Catálogo Alfabético de Apellidos of 1849 - there is an online copy of it at the Filipinas Heritage Library with an English language introduction. An 'issue' prior to the book was many Filipinos used the same few surnames of Cruz (cross), Rosario (rosary), Santos (saint), Bautista (baptised), etc when they joined the Church. The book provided about 61,000 names and words to choose as a surname and was distributed. Those who had already been using Indigenous, Spanish, and Chinese surnames didn't have to choose a new surname, though I've read elsewhere that where just a few surnames were so common the locals had to prove they used the name for four generations. The Catálogo Alfabético de Apellidos does not require this, so it appears this was done by local officials on their own. Local surnames such as Calimlim and Macapagal are used by about 20% of the population. Then there are those with surnames that originate from the Arab Middle East such as Usman. Remember, a lot of the Philippines was not under Spanish control and administration. And there are two types of Chinese surnames. The old, Ming and Qing Dynasty era, immigrants who created a surname such as Cojuangco from an entire name Co Yu Hwan. The 20th century immigrants such as Henry Sy who didn't Filipinize one's surname. There are a few non-Spanish European surnames from the Spanish colonial era as well, for example Zobel and McMicking, though I recall the latter died out. With the end of the galleon trade Spain relaxed immigration restrictions in the 19th century.

[@gagamba9198]

​@@PHlophe There were few Spaniards living in the Philippines. In the 17th century a total of 15,600 'Spanish' soldiers arrived in the Philippines (many soldiers were from Latin America), so an average of 156 per annum. Numerically, soldiers outnumbered other Spanish migrants to the Philippines by about seven to one, so 22 other non military people arriving annually on average, many of whom were priests and friars. For example from the years 1600 to 1625, 46% of the passengers aboard the galleons to the Philippines were clergy. This dropped to 8.5% for the years 1651 to 1699. The first official census in the Philippines was published in 1878 by the colonial Spanish government. Prior to that irregular population data was gathered from tax and Church records (the Planes de almas), though the Church didn't start keeping good records of birth, mariages, baptisms and deaths until the mid 18th century. In preparation of the '78 census the gov't issued instructions to the Church in the 1850s. The '78 census yielded a count of 5,567,685 persons living in the archipelago as of 31 December 1877, but it still relied heavily in Church records, though ones that had been prepared following gov't instructions. Colonial administrators were about 5,500 people. There were fewer than 15,000 in army and half of them were Filipinos. About 3,000 were in the navy. Nearly 2000 Spanish were clergy members. Spanish settlers (not affiliated with government, the Church, and the military) were about 13,300 people, usually living in the urban areas. Manila's population was about 150,000, and there were a few other cities of 30,000. Of the foreign population (non-Spanish), about 30,000 of the 34,000 people were Chinese. It should be noted that there was also a very large transient Chinese community who traveled between China and the Philippines - this is determined by ships' passenger records. A total of about 31,000 Spanish and 4,000 European foreigners, making Europeans about 0.6% of the total population. Spain did send more troops to the Philippines in the last years of the 19th century to deal with the uprising. The 1888 census reported 5,984,727 people. Keep in mind a lot of what is present-day Philippines wasn't under the control of the Spanish. For example, the Spanish never conquered the Igorots who lived the mountains of Luzon - the Spanish tried often. The American census on 1903 (far better quantitatively and qualitatively than Spain's) shows about 4000 Spanish citizens living in the Philippines, about 22% were female - the Spanish colonial admin, military, and friars would have departed before the census. Note, there were some Spanish colonial admin who remained to work for the Americans after Spain surrendered, for example some who were employed on the Customs Office. The head of that office gained some local fame for being the last to surrender. He demanded the Americans return in large number and threaten to use force for him to agree to surrender. The large number of non-Spanish immigrants were Chinese, most often from Fujian province. They numerically outnumbered the Spanish. Chinese often married a local woman and those who could afford it had local concubines as well. I think you'll find many more Filipinos with some Chinese ancestry than Spanish. The 1903 census reports mixed-raced mestizo with Chinese ancestry numbering about 42,000 and those of European ancestry numbering about 15,500. Roughly 3:1.

[@weonanegesiscipelibba2973]

Filipinos aren't Malays but both are Austronesian it's kinda like how people misunderstand the term "Germanic" with "-ic" and falsely believe that English *comes* from German

[@onomatopoetisk]

Are there any trends on switching to non-Spanish names?

[@miridium121]

In parts of Swedish speaking Finland people used their village as their surname, meaning every time you moved, you changed it. My great grandmother for example is listed under five different surnames. The law basically "froze" everyone in place, and I would have a different surname today if it had happened a few years later when my ancestors moved to another place.

[@isalovi1771]

That's interesting! I'm from Svenskfinland and if I recall correctly, my grandparents' generation were encouraged to change their last names or "officially come up with them", so that's what my grandma's dad did. I guess this might have been in the 30's, but I'll definitely ask for details next time we meet.

[@equinoxomega3600]

Interesting that there were so many competing naming traditions. In the village of my grandparents (small village in the middle of the Alps), they still use kind of dual naming system. On the one hand, everyone has their first names and family names, as in the rest of the country, but locally people still also use the "Hofnamen or Vulgonamen", which are the names of the farms or houses they live in. Typically those are the names of whoever first built that house or farm, regardless of the change in ownership or family name (maybe due to marriage) later. So within the village those are primarily used to refer to people living there. So instead of John Doe and Jane Doe, people would call them Mr. and Mrs. Fritz (because the house they live in carries that name) and if there are multiple generations living there, people are even called "the old (Mr.) Fritz" and "the young (Mrs) Fritz" (the gender always implied in the declination of adjectives and articles or in some cases even in the declination of the house name). Those names are even used in some official records in the form of Mr. John Doe vulgo Fritz. "

[@lchg6028]

Yeah, this was used as well in the community my granddad grew up. During his childhood (the mid-30s to mid-40s) it happened that about half the boys had either Peter as their first name or Guler as their family name like him. So they started to call him either by the alley he lived in or his "profession" of herding the goats of the community. That's why still today more people there know my family as the "Melchetipeters" (after the alley my granddad used to live). Even though I grew up about 200 kilometers away from there

[@rachelcookie321]

I think the reason there was so many types of names was because they were less of names, and just a way to identify individuals. Like saying “Mark from accounting” or “blonde Susan”. They just called them by whatever was the most significant thing about them. So for some people it was the famous family they came from or for others it was their job.

[@xwolpertinger]

Same further up north in Bavaria, at least in rural regions. A lot of times it is referred to as the "house name" which does make it sound a lot more fancy. Having a relatively rare surname when the farm split ~100 years ago we just were divided into the "front" and "back" until a new identity was forged. Bonus points goes for referring to a wife/widow by her husbands first name

[@Dwightstjohn-fo8ki]

The "Fritz" I know in Canada was born in a farmhouse in Switzerland, built.......in 1535!

[@thecountess1988]

Those "Vulgonamen" are also very common, especially amongst older people nowadays where I come frome, which is near the slovakian and hungarian border in Austria. Here these names often also have croatian origin since a lot of Croatians had been moved here under rule.of Maria Theresia to populate the area. :)

[@Mladjasmilic]

In Hercegovina (Bosna & Hercegovina), when Austrians took administration and wanted to do survey, people wanted to be funny, so they gave them fake last names. These are: Slijepčević (blind) Guzina (big ass) Lopov (thief) Zaklan (slaughtered) Zec (rabbit)...

[@rodrigoadrianrodriguezaedo4477]

XD

[@heyyo162]

That's hilarious ! 😊

[@goranpersson7726]

think those fake names might just have been veiled insults towards whatever austrian official came to ask them for their names for the census

[@heyyo162]

@@goranpersson7726 That reminds me of the WWII Polish prisoner who pretended to be named "Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz" just to thwart the Nazi officer who kept track of prisoners’ identities. Fictional or not, Polish phonology can give you a headache.

[@ScuffedLife]

But many of those fake last names persist until today xD The joke's on us in the end xD

[@oh2mp]

Greetings from Finland. Our history is Sweden's history in many parts because we were part of Sweden for 600 years. The naming systems were quite similar. The patronymes that people used were actually in Finnish, so if a man named Antti got a son and gave him name Matti, he became Matti Antinpoika. But we were under the Swedish power and the churchbooks were kept in Swedish. All the names were written down in swedishized form, so Matti Antinpoika would be Mats Andersson in the churchbook. That makes a little extra challenge on genealogy research. Our patronymes ending as "-poika" (-son) didn't change directly to surnames like in Sweden many did. In the last half of the 1800s the churchbooks changed to Finnish. At that time many people also began to take surnames. Many of them took the name from the farm where they lived etc. and there are also quite many surnames in Finland that are animal species, especially birds. Also, many people were given Swedish surnames even they were totally Finnish speaking. Here in Finland the surname became mandatory by law as late as 1921. In the 1930s there was a boom that many people who had Swedish surnames changed them to Finnish. Very often those names were direct translations like eg. "Forsström" became "Koskivirta" that is a literal translation.

[@LapinPete]

And then there are the eastern finns who had surnames for a very long time.

[@carlkolthoff5402]

Very interesting! Makes me wonder if the swedish word "pojke" (boy) is actually a loan from finnish "poika" (son). Other than that, I think we have surprisingly few finnish words in the swedish language, considering our long mutual history.

[@Killybillee]

@@carlkolthoff5402 it absolutely is.

[@carlkolthoff5402]

@@Killybillee Nice! I had to google to find more. Pjäxa and pulka are two more that are common in swedish that comes from finnish. Other than that I don't think swedes know a lot of finnish. We know a few phrases that we've seen lots of times (Ei saa peitää, moi mukulat) and the gorgeous curses (voi vittu, saatana perkele). Most of us also can count maybe to 5 or 10.

[@oh2mp]

@@carlkolthoff5402 in Finnish that same word means both boy and son.

[@berdge3917]

6:25 "Wærnulf" could be an abstraction of what would be "Värnulv", "Värn" (Guard) from Old Swedish "Værn" (think of "Värna", "to defend" or akin to "Wehren" in German). The strange spelling could be from Low German influence, though that's just a guess

[@ShEmDK]

I'll point out it makes sense in Danish: "Værn" = Guard (as you wrote), "Ulf" = Wolf and is also still found as a first name. Edit: And of course "æ" is a Danish letter too.

[@dwizzyvid]

As for the Dutch mentioned: "wāernen" is apparently early middle Dutch. I do not believe the "æ" was ever used in Dutch.

[@GoodmansGhost]

@@thomaseriksen6885 æ was also used in Swedish until the spelling reform of Gustav Vasa after the fall of the Kalmar Union in the 1500s. So it could be old timey, or simply trying to appear as such.

[@BiglerSakura]

"Värn" (Guard) --- Like in "varangian" ?

[@panzrok8701]

So it means Werewolf?

[@pannekook2000]

What's interesting is how the generation of gardsnamn is super similar to what I've experienced in sports. In a big tournament for something like rugby, often times you'll refer to people as teamname - firstname. This can be reified if a player moves to a different team that they already know from events. An example with made up names: you might have Matt Johnson and Matt Colognesi on a rugby team, abbreviated Matt J and Matt Cole on the field. Then a new guy named Matt joins the team, who used to play for Lockport. He'll end up being Lockport Matt. Or if the team was the Lockport Barbarians, he might be Matt Barb or Barb Matt. ( 'Barbarians' is kind of a weird and interesting exception though because it's such a common team name; often times multiple teams named the barbarians will distinguish themselves by abbreviating it differently - barbs vs. babas is something I've seen and I'm sure there are more)

[@1337penguinman]

Military ranks are another similar vein. Sgt Smith, Lt Jones, etc.

[@lzh4950]

My university hostel had some people with the same name so some neighbours got a bit more mischievous by differentiating them based on their characteristics e.g. there were 2 Stacys; the more outspoken one was called Stace L (L for 'loud') for short & the other was called Stace N (N for 'normal'). There're also 2 Vivians, with the 1 who moved to Japan to work after graduation called Vivian Japan

[@bettievw]

I love the way that Swedish sounds! It's much softer than my Dutch mother tongue, I'd love to learn it.

[@kklein]

I love Dutch too though can't lie

[@bettievw]

@@kklein to me Dutch is a harder, coarser version of German. I love and hate it, but I must say I prefer it to English 😅

[@jurgnobs1308]

​@@bettievw really? it sounds much softer than german to me, as a german speaker

[@bettievw]

@@jurgnobs1308 that's really interesting! I love how soft the g's and ch's are in German, I feel like they are quite rough in Dutch. What makes you say Dutch is softer?

[@jurgnobs1308]

@@bettievw i guess the ch and g are a bit more coarse in dutch (less so than in swiss german though) but for instance you have more voiced consonants where german has unvoiced ones (d instead of t, b instead of p and so on) which sounds softer to german ears

[@owenwilliams4759]

Manx names traditionally had mac/ine (son/daughter), as their structure, but in the 1700s it became common to drop the mac. The c at the end stuck around often though, so today in the Isle of Man you have lots of names like Corkill (MacThorkill, norse name), Kissack (MacIsaac), Callister (MacAlistair) and lots of others. Some names are from trades, like "Gawne" which comes from "y Gaauin" - The Smith, "y Taggyrt" - The Priest or "Teare " - Mac yn Teyr (in Scotland, this is anglicised as MacIntyre). There are also older names which have been translated into Manx, such as Boyde -> Boddagh, and Christian -> y Christeeyn. Today some people are keen to use Mac prefixes again, and some calque their English names into Manx when they're speaking Gaelic - someone with the surname Fisher might call themselves MacEeasteyr.

[@lagomoof]

Curious. Person with very Welsh name discusses Q-Goidelic names, but not those of their namesakes' ancestors (if not their own). ;) Anyway... In a similar manner to the Manx names, modern, Welsh-derived surnames are often truncated similarly. e.g. Bowen and Price are from "(m)ab Owen" and "(m)ap Rhys" where (m)ap/(m)ab is equivalent to the better known Mac, and the b is a mutation from p before a vowel. The m in "map" disappeared a long time ago; Modern Welsh doesn't use it. You might find, say, a person called Norman Price, going by "Norman ap Rhys" in Welsh language situations.

[@jakenadalachgile1836]

this is similar to Mac being shortened to 'ac in irish gaelic, eg Tomás 'ac Óda, Páidí 'Ac a Luain etc

[@bradhartliep879]

It's interesting that the Picts of Hibernia/Caledonia/Alba [ currently Scotland ] used "Makk" for "son of" [or rather the Irish Og'ham writers used "Makk" on the Standing Stones, since the Picts had no known written language ] and the Welsh used "Mab" [pronounce map], which became "Ap", which further became "P" as the first letter of the last name .. but the "mac" in Ireland [ "son of" ] was mostly replaced by the O' - "grandson of" ] .. and the "daughter of" have all been basically wiped from memory .. "nik" in scotland .. "merch" [guttural "merk", similar to the ch in "Loch"] in Wales ..

[@bradhartliep879]

My American "Hartliep" was originally "Hartlieb" in Germany [ Thuringia ] .. my father's mother was from Sweden [ a Johnson ], but my mother's family is all from Scotland, Ireland and Wales [ two of her line going all the way back to the pre-Scottish [dal riatan] Picts, and a Welshman who married an Irish Girl in Cork waiting for the Boat to America ] .. most think 'Hartlieb' was changed by the US Customs Agent hearing "Hartliep" as the pronounciation .. back about 120 years ago it split the family - half sticking with "hartliep" and the other half switching to "hartlieb" - ergo, Chuck Hartlieb is a distant cousin ..

[@Greksallad]

This is like the 4th video I watch from your channel and I was fully convinced you were British until I heard your Swedish just now lol. After I heard your perfect Swedish pronunciation and figured out you're Swedish, I even started to hear that slight Swedish accent in your English. But overall your pronunciation of English is almost flawless, I am very impressed. Also, very interesting topic and video! You've earned yourself a new subscriber :D

[@GratDuForloradeArgumentet]

"k klein?"

[@Greksallad]

@@GratDuForloradeArgumentet Not a Swedish name

[@GratDuForloradeArgumentet]

@@Greksallad Klein is a jewish or a german name, usually jews have it

[@jeandupond9605]

@@GratDuForloradeArgumentet there are more Germans with the name. The only German names exclusive to Jews are those referencing trees, bushes, precious metals and gemstones. E.g. Mandelbaum, Teitelbaum, Rosenzweig, Rosensaft, Gold, Silbergeld, Rubin, Edelstein. Names like Schwartz, Klein and even Löw are pretty common among regular Germans.

[@GratDuForloradeArgumentet]

@@jeandupond9605 I see. Haha precious metals and gemstones. Makes sense.

[@david_rocky_road]

I cannot fathom what nationality you are. Your Swedish pronunciation is fantastic, your Chinese intonation is flawless and your accent sounds very English. Wherever you come from, your videos are detailed, fun and informative and I love to receive notifications of a new video from you. Keep up the great work!

[@deafsear7548]

I mean, he could be from anywhere and just be very skilled at speaking other languages.

[@AlexandruSorez]

hes british i think

[@iain3713]

I think he's British Chinese and just knows a lot of languages?

[@zangoloid]

@@deafsear7548 they use they/them pronouns btw

[@jurgnobs1308]

they talk about their relatives changing their names in this video. so definitely swedish or part swedish

[@jhuyt-]

Gårdsnamn were common at least in the village my grandparents come from around Luleå, Norrbotten. If my grandfather had inherited the farm I could have been Hjort-! Pretty sure those were common where my maternal grandmother comes from as well, but I haven't asked her about it.

[@kathyastrom1315]

That’s were my grandfather was from, too! Our last name was job-related-Great-great-grandfather Karl, a ferryboat captain on the River Lule,, took Stor Åström, which means large river current. I’ll have to review my research to translate the non-patronymic names I’ve found.

[@somnvm37]

02:03 wow, we still use patronyms in eastern europe, along with last names too. Aleksey Alekseevich Dubov (name + patronym + last name)

[@alicebydinger]

One of my ancestors was named Ingvar. He was born and raised in a small place called Bytaremåla, and moved later in life. At the new location people gave him the nickname "Bytare-Ingvar" because of his birth location, and due to their dialect, it eventually turned into "Bydinger". Ingvar had several daughters, one of which is my great grandmother. Her husband liked the nickname and made it the family's surname. The name was about to be lost forever, but my parents chose to use it as well. As of today, I am one of seven people, as well as the youngest person in the world, who has this surname.

[@GratDuForloradeArgumentet]

Cool. if I search swedish searchengine you can still find that place, it's just above Olofström in southern Sweden on the country-side, in Blekinge (which is the county district).

[@alicebydinger]

@@GratDuForloradeArgumentet Yep. That's where they moved. My grandmother grew up in Olofström

[@TinaDanielsson]

That's definitely a better story than "my grand father picked our name from a state published list" 😂

[@GratDuForloradeArgumentet]

@@TinaDanielsson Alla efternamn är ju dock påhittade - det är liksom vad ett efternamn är. Oklart vad den där sponsrade listan hade för effekt med tanke på att de flesta i Sverige har namn efter naturen eller en plats. Typ Bergkvist, Hedlund osv.

[@TinaDanielsson]

​@@GratDuForloradeArgumentet Nu vet jag inte hur du menar. Varken son-namn eller gårdsnamn är några "påhittade" efternamn. Det är namn som indikerar ett förhållande mellan en person och något annat (tex person, plats, yrke). Familjenamn/släktnamn användes redan på 1600-talet och det blev vanligare och vanligare hos adeln och borgare under senare århundraden. Soldater fick ofta så kallade soldatnamn som blev till familjenamn (tex Sköld och Svärd). De vanligare familjenamnen som vi ser idag har med andra ord haft lång tid på sig att utöka sina släkter. Namnen som togs i början på 1900-talet har bara några generationer på nacken. Därför är det svårt att se vad effekten blev av att namn på listan valdes utan att titta närmare på statistiken. Men helt klart hade det funnits många fler personer med son-namn annars idag.

[@dandanovich6729]

Interesting! We had the same stuff in Russian, back in the days. And the surnames were organised in more or less the same way, but earlier, during the 18-19 centuries. The only difference is that we still use the patronyms on a regular basis, along with the surnames.

[@BiglerSakura]

Yes, as a result the modern Russian (or broader East European) naming system is somewhat hybrid of the Icelandic and Swedish systems. No connection or influence from there, of course, but similar processes lead to resembling results.

[@hopsys]

Normally I can tell straight a way when I am listening to a fellow Sven Svensson speaking English, but your accent is super clean. When you started dropping Swedish names perfectly out of nowhere, I had to do a double take.

[@SkyeID]

is k klein swedish?

[@Madeleinewith3Es]

And here I thought trying to track Scottish surnames was hard. (Grandmother's maiden name was McCants, which got the "Mc" when they moved to Ireland around 1700 after the Massacre at Glencoe, and before that there were Cants/Cant/Cann variations of the name. And that's easier than tracking any of the Italian names)

[@andreasleeb4085]

Hearing about the Gårdsnamn was interesting for me. In rural Austria, we often still use the Hausnamen (= house names) colloquially instead of the surname today. Those names are most often derived from professions, villages or geographic features near the farm/house.

[@TheTbenvick]

My grandfather changed his last name when he came to Canada to the name of the port he left out, which was in Finland. Most of his family all changed to different names when they came to Alberta, which makes keeping track of who was related to who a whole process. And to make it even more annoying, when my father was born the Doctor spelled the last name wrong on his birth certificate, so our family is name is different yet again. Swedish people are weird 😅

[@onomatopoetisk]

I think that was very common. One probably chose something easy for the locals to pronounce and spell. Andersson > Anderson. Svensson > Swanson. And so on. Taking the name of the port is a creative way to create a new identity, I suppose!

[@jojojojo4332]

In the Netherlands this was also a problem, it was resolved by having silly names or names related to the craft your grandfather had. Kuiper would be someone who would put stuff in barrels can store them. Like beer.

[@Mesruksi]

oh so kinda like Cooper?

[@scygnius]

This video finally helped me understand our family's "Sundelius" surname.. Thanks!

[@der.Schtefan]

Great video! :) It's crazy how the west often things the standard naming patterns are "universal". In the German speaking world, there is this ongoing "meme" how north-german created forms usually read "Name: __________ First name: ___________" and foreigners and southeners filling it in with their firstname first, and then yelling, and having to get a new form . While in the south we write : "First name: _________ Last name: __________" on forms. Also, btw, in Hungarian one also writes/says the family name first.

[@aramisortsbottcher8201]

As a German myself I did this mistake often enough, hehe...

[@dsludge8217]

As a Swede, I made this mistake on an Italian registration document.

[@angelostsirimokos8104]

@@dsludge8217 IN French, the usual word for 'name' is 'nom', which on administartive documents means 'family name', the given name being 'prénom'. In Italian, 'nome' is the given name and the family name is 'cognome'. The historical reason for this confusion is that the ancient Romans (think of Marcus Tullius Cicero) had three names: praenomen, nomen and cognomen...

[@Sk0lzky]

Something very similar happened in XX century Mongolia, it's hilarious how few and how basic they are, especially compared to their often creative first names. But I think the Swedish situation is more akin to the one in Russia which was exactly the same, except they kept using patronymics, so surnames were shortened to avoid hilarity like Ivan Ivanovich Ivanovich (instead you're more likely to meet an I. Ivanovich Ivanov)

[@lzh4950]

Indonesian Chinese meanwhile used non-Chinese surnames during Suharto's New Order gov't due to a policy of greater assimiliation of ethnic minorities (such as the Chinese there). Many took up more native-sounding surnames, some of which have become uniquely Indonesian Chinese e.g. Gunawan, Halim but some took up other ethnicities' surnames too e.g. I met some colleagues surnamed Romanoff

[@Liggliluff]

(4:20) Always find it awkward when people say "quote, unquote" before a quote, instead just "quote" and then ending with an optional "unquote".

[@ArkadiBolschek]

Funny thing about the Gardsnamm, that was also the traditional naming convention in the Basque country before the state mandated family names. Your surname indicated what _caserío_ (hamlet) you had been born in, and you shared it with all the people from that hamlet, blood-related or not.

[@FastLegs]

I've read similar stories about Finnish names. Of course the area of modern Finland was part of Sweden until 1809. Something that you didn't mention is that when a man was conscripted to the army and didn't have a last name, he was given one. One way to name a soldier was that if he replaced some dead soldier, he would take his last name or nickname 😁 My last name comes from the area I'm from and there were others with the same last name but no relation.

[@KanaG44]

In Finland it mostly depends on the region. In Western Finland a similar system to gårdsnamn was common. While Eastern Finland has one of the oldest surname traditions among common folk. I'm from Eastern Finland. As my surname is quite new, we know where it came from, the name of the family farm (ca. 1800s). The name before the current one and the surname from my mom's side are so old we have no way of knowing where they came.

[@hlibushok]

Kinda like these minimalistic traditional clothes your characters are dressed in.

[@antonvrigborn6666]

I really enjoy your videos, they are fun and initiativ, and i always learn a new fun fact about a language on the other side of the world that I never would have heard of otherwise

[@kathyastrom1315]

This was so informative, and helpful when I look over my genealogy research!! I’ve been putting together my family tree on my paternal grandfather’s line, and am quite thankful that patronymic names were standard as far back as they were, since it helped me pin down who were my ancestors at certain points. I did have to rely too much on previous work done by others on the website, just because there is no way to double-check names beyond the church records when you go back far enough. Between that and the language difficulty, I do have a big asterisk on my tree just because I can’t independently verify it. Grandpa came from Gäddvik, a small village near Luleå, and the small population that far north also helped with assembling my tree. I did find one third great grandmother Christine Falander, born in 1825. The church had “Fadern oangiven,” which leads me to think she might have been illegitimate. The name Falander was used by her mother in addition to her patronymic. There are several other non-patronymic names used as supplements to the patronymic ones throughout the tree, as well as a few soldier names. My own last name Åström (Americanized by my grandfather when he emigrated in 1924) didn’t appear until my 2nd great grandfather Karl Gustav Stor Åström apparently adopted it when the law was passed in 1901, ten years before his death. I just now looked up the translation of his name, and it is “large river current,” which makes sense because he was a ferryboat captain crossing the River Lule connecting both halves of Gäddvik! I do love it when names can be explained by things like professions.

[@Mycenaea]

Nice story! :) Just wanted to point out that "Stor"(large, big, great, burly - aka whoever first used that name was a big burly man :P) most likely is a military name and has nothing to do with his boat captain profession :)

[@thegooseisin6910]

My dad is very interested in genealogy and was researching my mom's side of the family but hit a pretty hard roadblock because he had a hard time tracing swedish surnames so it limited my knowledge of that family line to just the fact that they lived in sweden.

[@velenteriushendeneros3251]

In Norway gårdsnavn were also used, and even my granda, who had a surname, "Henden" after the the place they lived "Ytre Henden" Outer Henden, he was still called by older people, "Ola Eivind", Eivind being his name, and Ola being the name of the family farm. This was not an official name, but i guess it was useful for knowing where people com from.

[@xenon2561]

I know this has been uploaded a long time age but another place where it's really interesting is in Turkey, where people only started using surnames in the 1920s with the start of the modern turkish state, leading to some pretty normal names but also some wild ones that are basically accepted nowadays even though theyre really weird if you think too much into them

[@Lixn1337]

My mom told me when she grew up there were so many in the village named Lisa that they would add their husband's name as a prefix, for instance "Johan Lisa"

[@gruu]

Finally a comprehensive and well made video about this, you sir earned my subscribble!

[@davidjacobs8558]

you should make video on Kim/Jin/金 clan. who were the ruling family of Ancient Korean Silla Kingdom, Jurchen Jin Dynasty, Manchu Qing Dynasty and also North Korean Kim Dynasty currently. Their ancestor was Xiongnu prince Jin Midi 金日磾 (134 - 86 BC)

[@joelmattsson9353]

My great aunt was usually referred to by her village rather than her legal last name, everyone knew her as 'Karin i Växbo'. Sadly she passed away recently, and it's rare even among her generation that people are referred to in this way.

[@SachaCubesLatino]

Swedish pitch accent, please!!! (And whether or not it existed in Old Norse, or just talk about pitch accent in general but touch on Swedish). Keep up the awesome job!

[@alphamikeomega5728]

Because its main use is to distinguish words like "and+en" from "ande+n", and since it doesn't really exist in Germanic languages where the definite article remains a separate word before the noun, I imagine it arose precisely for the purpose of distinguishing the definite forms of nouns.

[@countyfacts6920]

Finally caught up with your videography! Im glad ive find this channel.

[@machoke666]

U didn't mention anything about last names inspired by nature, such as Lindberg, Bergström, Eklund, Holm, Björk, Blomqvist, and so on, those are the second most common type of Swedish last names

[@_loss_]

5:44 It's in the same category.

[@martinklasch]

@@_loss_ Sure, but since the specific group "nature names" makes up about 30% of all Swedish surnames it surely should have been mentioned specifically, don't you think?

[@brunoricciardi4068]

Your videos are amazing, cleary you put a lot of effort on them, would be nice if in the future you cover old languages also

[@ydalir]

A very similar story of surnames in Norway next door! I love it. My own surname comes from the name of a piece of property and is only about four generations old. There are about 40 of us total spread around globe mostly in Norway and Canada and we all can trace our roots back with confidence to our shared great grandparents!

[@mattebandet]

Only they would not have the property's name before the personal name

[@jangoofy]

As a Dane, stereotypes have told me Jönsson was the most common surname in Sweden - thank you for clearing this up for an old 'sen person :)

[@Eddies_Bra-att-ha-grejer]

It's actually Johansson.

[@GratDuForloradeArgumentet]

It does exist, but it's much more common with Jonsson then without the Ö. I think those names are boring as hell, because we have no cool names anymore. Well we have them still, but few have those names. Was cooler when we had a lot of scandinavian names .. like my name here Asgeir, it means Spear of the gods in old norse.

[@andershilding5756]

This was interesting.. just popped up in my feed and actually clarified some things ive wondered about. Tack!

[@maksiksq]

Here in Ukraine 🇺🇦, especially after the wider adoption of surnames in soviet union, you could often find entire villages of 2-3 surnames. It's often seen in WW2 movies when they are trying to tell someone that their son will have to go to army but they can't find them because everyone has the same name. Urbanisation never really happened in Ukraine, a lot of people still live in villages (including myself), but a lot of people aren't doing agriculture and it's doubtable if these can be called villages now, hovewer after the war movement in soviet union was free and a lot of Polish, Belorusian, russian and other people moved in here, mixing and making most people have different surnames, and I am a descendant of a Polak myself although my surname was somehow transformed into a more Ukrainized version.

[@KerbalHub]

The situation with "Andersson" is pretty similar to the placeholder name "John Smith" lol

[@Siijiska]

Haha, I can relate to the "gibberish surname from the early 1900s" thing. My surname, Friedner, looks German to most Swedes due to the spelling, but no Germans actually seem to be named it. The family lore about the origin is a place in Västergötland named Fridene, so I assume someone just wanted it to sound more German because it's cool. In the village in Dalarna where I lived big parts of my childhood those gårdsnamn are still in use. Some people have them formally, but most people have them informally. Many people have old gårdsnamn as formal surnames, but then they're just always said with the surname first (so that someone who's name in the official registers is Lars Andersers will still be called Andersers Lars in daily speech). And then that pattern is also translated to people without proper gårdsnamn, so I'm generally referred to as "Friedners Anneli".

[@mauritsponnette]

Straight from your Swedish heart! Very nice video and I liked the song at the end very much! Greetings from Belgium 👍👋

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

In northern Italy we used to have a similarly complicated system, despite family names existing for a long time. People had an official family name that had been established in church and/or feudal registries since the middle ages, but ended up using other names instead. Sometimes it was because in a given area too many people had the same surname and thus it was necessary to distinguish between branches, sometimes it was because a recent ancestor had garnered a strong enough reputation that his nickname stuck for generations, sometimes "Bob [the son] of Steve" just turned into "Steve"...

[@thetemporaryusername]

In my family lineage, the very Norwegian Christensen family changed their surname to the very Irish-sounding name of Brenangan because they had too many neighbors with the same name. I assume that Norway underwent a similar transition from patronymics to fossilized patronymics due to similar attempts to modernize.

[@dabanaba]

This was such a cool video, det är alltid kul att lära mer om svensk historia! tack så mkt :)

[@andreasmetzger7619]

Fun fact: in southern Germany in many places its also not unusual to switch family name and given name when talking about someone. For example if I'm telling you that Hans Müller from the middle of the street had an accident you would here "the Müller Hans had an accident". If you're confused about the article in front of the name: it's just how we do it in the south😂

[@oktopussy9628]

From Northern Germany I know it like "Müllers Hans", meaning the Hans that belongs to the Müller family or farm. Becourse of this, the Hans in question may not even have the official surname "Müller".

[@lzh4950]

Many East & northern SE Asians have their surname at the front too e.g. Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese, while the Japanese do so too in Japanese but the other way round in English, supposedly as that practice stemmed from the 19th century when Japan wanted to interact more with Western countries I think, but they're now trying to reverse that

[@utkua]

Weird as it is in Turkish exactly similar in rural Anatolia, family name with pluiral first then the name when reporting about someone.

[@mattebandet]

@@lzh4950 I always thought that was an honorary thing, honoring the family before oneself

[@spacebug30]

The Netherlands has lots of weird surnames like 'pannenkoek' (pancake) and 'schoenveter' (shoe lace). Not sure if the whole story is correct, but I learned that the government had tried to implement surnames before and it never really worked out, so when Napoleon wanted everyone to have a surname, some people just came up with something ridiculous because they thought it wouldn't last long either. Well, that didn't exactly turn out the way they expected!

[@NeuroHead]

Lol that's crazy I didn't know that .

[@joep359]

When Napoleon was occupying the netherlands in 1811 he introduced something called the 'Burgerlijke stand' or the 'Bourgeois class' making all people living in the netherlands part of the new bourgeois (in name only). This meant everyone also had to make up their own last names leading to the prevalence of last names starting with 'van' mean 'of'. Names like 'van Tilburg' meaning of Tilburg (a city) or van Dijk, meaning of dyke. This also meant there were some jokey names like 'Naaktgeboren' meaning 'Born naked'.

[@dutchman7623]

Yes, but there was an enormous diversity as well, like in Sweden. In the south family names existed for centuries already, in the east many family names were related to farms. Professional names like Smit (Smith) Timmermans (Carpenter) Paardekooper (Horse buyer). River related like van Rijn (from the Rhine) van der Waal (from the Waal) van der Aa (from the Aa). Patronims that became family names like Peters (children of Peter) Janssen (children of Jan). Place names like van Delft (from Delft) van Nimwegen (from Nijmegen old spelling). Nobility names, which can easy be confused with place names, like van Gemert (descendents of the Lord of Gemert, but also from the place Gemert). And in records, marriage, baptism, burial, single, double or even triple patronims were added to make sure who was involved like Nicolaas Christiaans Willems Peters van Gerwen, which means: Nico, son of Christaan who was son of Willem who was son of Peter with the family name van Gerwen. And sometimes the last patronim became part of a family name, like Peters van Gerwen, also for the next generation. Confusing is the fact that people had multiple first names, than you do not know whether it's a patronim or double name. So searching back to 1811 is easy because of the records in city hall, before that church records can be confusing.

[@angelostsirimokos8104]

'Burgerlijke stand' is simply the Dutch equivalent of the French 'état civil', i.e. 'population registry'. 'Burgerlijk' in this context simply means 'civil' in the sense of 'not associated with the Church or the military' (because until the creation of the 'état civil' in France by François I, records of births and deaths were only kept by the parishes).

[@dutchman7623]

@@angelostsirimokos8104 Correct. But on the other hand, everyone should become registered, in the same system, by the municipality, no matter class or status. Everyone should have a first name, family name, date of birth, place of birth, parents. Which data should be registered became standard. That was something new.

[@joep359]

@@angelostsirimokos8104 This is in general true indeed. What I meant was in the eyes of the state everyone is an equal 'Burger' or civilian, instead of divding between free men and peasants etc. In addition to centralizing the birth and death registry.

[@elixexo4011]

This is something that's been on my mind for a while. Very nice explanation.

[@danilincks5809]

Good job! Reminded me a bit of CGP Grey’s style and I loved hearing you reading the title of the book in Swedish!

[@metallsnubben]

0:25 Heraldry nerd nitpick: a "family crest" is not the proper name for a coat of arms. A crest is not the whole arms and in particular not the shield, but the "helmet ornament" (and in swedish literally called hjälmprydnad) worn on the helmet, like the ox forehead on the _helmet_ on the Oxenstierna arms. Of course there it's an ox forehead on both the crest and shield, and it's common for the crest to just be a more "3D" version of the main motif of the arms, but it can also be something completely different (german heraldry has a lot of horns and feathers, english has a lot of animals up there). And originally this was an actual thing you'd wear on your helmet as a knight going to a tournament. The misconception (and it's so common that I've heard it from experts on Antiques Roadshow on TV) comes from when people stopped being knights and carrying shields, and heraldry became somethign you had on badges and signet rings instead. It became pretty common to wear just the _crest_ (as in helmet ornament) as a badge, and indeed with scottish clans there's a thing where the shield of the arms can only be used by the clan chief, but anyone is allowed to wear a "crest badge" with the crest surrounded by the clan motto. Perhaps this started because if you're making jewellery out of unpainted metal, it's easier to make out the clear silhouette of a crest than stuff on top of a shield shape.

[@____-pb1lg]

It's sad how many cultural quirks we lost because of "modernisation"

[@Delgen1951]

Not so modern, at lest in English were family names were required for the Doonsday book of William the Duke of Normady, king of England, for tax records, in 1066 or there abouts.

[@DeveusBelkan]

I would argue that in this case, we have gained something through modernization. The trouble with these older naming conventions circles back to the reasons why the government insisted upon a standardized system -- inconsistency made record keeping impossible. How many names were lost a generation past the one that carried them? A consistent surname reinforces your links to the people you descend from as it makes record keeping much more consistent. Most of my ancestors have come from places with these standardized surname practices so I can easily pull a history of my ancestor stemming hundreds of years, going back to the 1400s at times. Without that, someone like me, who has no immediate ancestors from the Netherlands or Spain, would be completely unaware that a prominent branch of my ancestry must have developed out of the Dutch war for independence from Spain as a mingling of two of my ancestors happened at this time... a Spanish man and a Dutch woman. Might be a bit of a dark history, but one that at least I know because of good record keeping.

[@NukkuiskoHyvinVaiPois]

Eh, I rather like being able to change my surname, having a gender-neutral surname and being able to be named after my mother's family. And while this was government inforced, it also shows a shift in values: it doesn't matter who is your father or what your family history is, what matters is who *you* are.

[@UnproductiveSunbeam]

Awesome. I have nothing to add, it just was awesome. Massively enjoyed watching the vid, thanks for making it!

[@joostvanassenbergh180]

I am currently busy with my own genealogy (I am from the Netherlands) and I see a lot of these things too. The petronymics, being named after your place of origin, changing surnames. Interesting video.

[@runedahl1477]

In Norway we have similar naming traditions. I have studied my roots back in Norway as far back as year 1500 and I even have a Swedish branch I have been able to track back to year 950. As for my Norwegian branch I found seven generations where the males indirect line switched between being named Guttorm Jetmundsen and Jetmund Guttormsen. With a lot of Guttorms and Jetmunds living in the same valley at the same time things got really complicated to distinguish one from the other so they added the name of the farm at the end. Then their surnames woul also be Snetun, Myklemyr, Åsen and similar. In Jostedal where a branch of my family comes from I have one ancestor called Anders Snetun (The farm highest up I the valley and one called Ragnhild Åsen. These most have been some of the earliest settlers after that Black Plague wiped out the whole population except a very young girl that where afraid of people and tried to avoid them. That is probably the reason why she survived. So already back in 1500 had they slightly altered the naming traditions in Norway.😊

[@vx8431]

The one type of name you forgot Soldatnamn, soldier names like Svärd, Klang, Rask, Frisk, Wärn and Roos. Most of them originated during 1500s-1700s. Also a speculation on the name Wærnulf is that it's a composite they thought sounded cool since Wärn a classical soldiers name used to be spelled Wærn (There is also a noble family called that) and Ulf meaning wolf so armed wolf? or equipped wolf? So it sorta sounds like a soldiering name from the Carolingian era.

[@vx8431]

@Marcus True had a brain fart.

[@sagacious03]

Neat analysis video! Thanks for uploading!

[@DrDAC-go7hs]

Great video, thanks for spreading knowledge of the best country on earth 😁 One thing I want to bring up however: Lärda namn could mean "learned names" or it could mean "taught names" but it could also mean "names of the taught" (ie clergy names) which I think is more likely.

[@steffplaysmapping1104]

In Norway, surnames seems to come into universal use from the end of the 19th century and onward. One source said it was required since 1923. Before that, it seems that patronymics was common. For my family, the name of our farm became our surname. Before, place name said where someone lived. When my great-great-great grandfather moved here as a tenant, he probably would be known for living here instead of living at his former residency. If there were more than one with the same first name and patronymic, place name might have helped out. A bit unsure when modern surnames were adopted in my family. The local Bygdebok suggest at the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th century, between my great grandfather and my grandfather. With the former not listed with a surname. But if I visited the graves, I am sure it would be difficult to find a grave without surnames. That may, however, be because surnames was not required when my great grandfather was born, but had become required when he died. For my great great grandfather, who died before it became required, it is not certain that he used a surname.

[@mattebandet]

If you read the censuses, the big consolidation of non-patronymic names seems to occur between the 1900 and the 1910 census. What I'm saying is that people who had patronymics in 1900 had gotten other names by 1910.

[@erikrahlen5157]

Trevlig och informerande video måste jag säga, bra jobbat min nordiska broder 🇸🇪🤟jag har dock funderat en massa över dubbel förnamn och hur det fungerar ursprungligen, som exempel: (Sven-erik) (efternamn).

[@1Hadram1]

Fantastic dive into this topic. Going to share this around. Myself my mother's family got their name from when my great-grandfather did his military service.

[@marioreds7826]

Some of this stuff you mentioned in this video also happened in Norway, like changing last name if you moved to another farm after getting married, or the recent laws protecting some traditional farm names.

[@wilsan806]

If you wanna be ridiculous and analyze the name "Wærnulf", it could mean something like "Sentinel Wolf" or "Corps Wolf", but yeah, mostly it just sounds funny. Edit: That is, if you wanna translate it from a weird archaic form of danish that I'm not even sure ever existed.

[@finnsalsa9304]

Brilliant video! If you ever decide to make a video about Finnish and/or Finland, I'd be glad to help (somehow). 😄

[@mimimurlough]

Thanks for this! Well researched and interesting!

[@enderalex300]

Ty for the video. All your videos have been great! I hope your audience explodes.

[@johanrosenberg6342]

Yeah this was a very interesting video to watch (although with both my parents being Swedish geneologists I knew most of it already). What I can add is that matronyms did exist historically, but with the stigma associated with being born outside of marriage to an unknown father (that was the main way to get a matronym), I assume most people with matronyms would at some point want to change their surname. Speaking of being unmarried, in Sweden, having a double surname tends to mean that your parents aren't married (it can obviously mean other things, but that's the usual explanation). However, in Norway and historically in some regions of Sweden it wasn't uncommon to have double surnames iirc. And in those cases you'd usually have a combination of the names mentioned in this video, so for instance you could be called Lars Per-Andersson, if your name was Lars, your farm's Per, and your father's Anders. Then there's also what might be a touchy subject, but according to one source I've read, many Sami during certain periods in history had surnames based on banter. I don't know how that came to be, nor how friendly said banter was (hence why I say it might be a touchy subject), but it's definitely an interesting naming convention. Especially when you find out that some Sami in this period had "Svensk" (eng. "Swedish") as their surname lol (I mean it's problematic humor, but let me laugh at it). Beyond that, soldier surnames have already been mentioned, and I think that's about it as far as I know. I mean I could go on about how sometimes several generations of men could have the same name, and thus the same patronym, or any one of several other geneological anecdotes, but ehh, I've gone on for long enough already.

[@Arthur3148]

Yes, the stigma of illegitimate birth was strong in these times, in my country France too for surnames, but sometimes there was no choice. When my dad did genealogical researchs about our family, he found out that the furthest ancestor that carried our surname was a woman who lived in the 1600s, because she gave birth unmarried from an unknown father, so they gave her surname to her son who's my great great great many times great grandfather.

[@NotASummoner]

Really? Nobody has ever thought that I have a double surname because my parents were unmarried.

[@beth7935]

@@Arthur3148 Haha, my surname hits a roadblock even more quickly: my convict great-great-grandfather had his mother's surname cos he was illegitimate, & we have no idea who his father was. It was at least his mother's actual surname tho: another family surname was a convict alias- obviously not a very effective one, lol, but his male-line descendants still have it to this day.

[@realhawaii5o]

Interestingly, one of my few Swedish friends has the surname Leijojhufvud. I didn't know this was an old nobility name so I asked her about it. She's like "yeah I'm technically part of the nobility but it doesn't matter nowadays" lol

[@henriklarsson5221]

That is true, except in some noble families which still hold large areas of lands that was "won" long ago. But normal Sweds can´t change to the noble family-names(if they are alive and active) even if they´d like to... so in some ways it matters apparently...according to law they are still more special then the rest of us, which is silly really ^)^

[@goranpersson7726]

@@henriklarsson5221 i mean... you generally are not allowed to change names to another living family's name unless you are actually related to them no matter if that is a noble name or not. like I can't for example change my last name to the same as my neighbor because we have no claim to it (aka married too,related too etc). there are laws about changing your last name sure but they arent there to "protect" a noble name or shit like that, it's to prevent issues with too many people having the same name and such. so you have to give a reason for the name change and usually they only accept ones that are have a form of relation to or in some cases when you've committed a crime that garnered attention but you've served the time and rehabiliated they sometimes allow a name change so you can get a fresh start

[@nessus47]

'Leionhufvud' ..that means "Lionhead". That is surely a glorious name.

[@GratDuForloradeArgumentet]

@@goranpersson7726 yes you can.. you can change your name

[@GratDuForloradeArgumentet]

Lmao, yeah the nobility all have ridiculous names in old 18th spelling.. that means Lionhead and should be spelled Lejonhuvud, but they spell it silly so it sounds old and fancy

[@brewwin]

i am so interested in things like that I really appreciate how you didn't just talk about Sweden but linked historical changes through Scandinavian Europe- it was much easier to understand this as a hollistic event.

[@PastaAivo]

Great video, a lot of good information in such a compact form. The Swedish surnames sure are interesting.

[@stancarmen3369]

Don't know if this was the case in other parts of the country, but at least in Småland non-patronymic surnames were common (I think even standard) among commoners up until the 17th century. Families could have names like Krok, Toke (my favourite), or Dacke.

[@tia7753]

another great video. keep it up klein!

[@PavelQuiteGood]

Great video. I left a like! And super awesome music in the end. 🙂

[@sirseigan]

Great video! Missed the soldiernames (as already mention) but also the more rarely mentioned "boatsman names" (similar to soldiernames but for soldiers/sailors in the navy but often types of wood: Lind, Ek, Ask, Gran). Also I would have wanted to hear more of the guidelines that were for creating new surename, not uncommonly from villiage names (Alnäs = Algren, Alberg, Albäck, Alström, Aldén etc etc). There were also many naming reforms before the law were in place. You touch on this ever so slightly with that many had already changed, but this was not done without urging. The generation before the law were often known by two surenames; the patronyme and a biname (often given or taken, like; Nils Persson "Spjut") while their kids were only known by their fathers biname as surename (Spjut). The surename of both sides of my family is like this where one is a (wierd) soldiername and the other is a farmer who takes a new (but common) surname. Both before the name law it self.

[@muhammadfawwazrazani8081]

Holy your pronouciation is quite good, as from the perspective of a non svenska speaker who admires the language too much.

[@kklein]

I am Swedish lol :)

[@muhammadfawwazrazani8081]

@@kklein thought you're from the uk as what your about page says, i guess i learn that its not reliable. Love how the Languange sounds~

[@kklein]

@@muhammadfawwazrazani8081 I live in the UK but am originally Swedish

[@greenmachine5600]

@@kklein thought you might have been of German heritage, just wondering why your last name was Klein

[@aramisortsbottcher8201]

@@greenmachine5600 I thought "K Klein" has to do with "Kalvin Klein". Or was it Calvin...?

[@gillheptinstall1294]

My mother-in-law's family changed their name from Karlsson, I suspect that's also where a lot of the "nature" names came from. Great vid :)

[@ACEsParkJunheeWreckedMeHard]

Not exactly that, but there exists a story of a boy called "Karlson" (firstname, not surname) that can fly since he has rotor blades on his back. He becomes friends to a boy that he takes everyhwere but he is super angry all the time and rude asks the boy "give candy or else I don't fly!" and they hide him on the roof of a building where he lives in a room since nody has to know he exists

[@wezzuh2482]

Very interesting video. It strikes me like something very similar is the case here in Denmark, though i haven't delved too deeply into the history of our surnames here.

[@voxveritas333]

Thanks for the humorous look at last names. In my home area there are many Andersons, Olsons, Jensens, Petersons, Bergs,Thompsons, Ericksons, etc. so I completely understand!😂