Updated 6 days ago
Most Scandinavian surnames either end in “-son” or “-dottir,” or, if their ancestors were clergy, merchants, artisans, and/or nobility, they often had a heritable surname generally reflective of their craft, occupation, or reflective of the natural world in which they lived.
The adaption of a unique surname became universal in 1901, when all Swedish by law
had to have one heritable name passed to successive generations. Still, today, the most common surnames in modern Sweden are patronymic, ending in -son.
My ancestor, Per Hanson, traveled across the Atlantic multiple times and worked hard digging ditches in Illinois before he achieved the American Dream in Iowa.
I went through several lists of common Swedish surnames and considerably narrowed down the field. Using the brief list below of the most commonly used agglutinative surnames, one can reverse engineer many, if not most, Scandinavian names.
This will not only expand your cultural understanding, but may even provide a novel way to remember people’s names.
Finally, I included a list of the most common words English inherited from Old Norse.
I find this utterly fascinating, and not simply because I have Swedish ancestry. What really pulls me in is the fact that Scandinavian culture is in many ways the epitome of the Western heroic individualistic warrior tradition that left its mark from Iceland to Russia and beyond. Seen through this lens, Old Norse is seminal to Western Civilization in the same sense that a Wolf, Husky, or an Alaskan Malamute are the purest expressions of the ideas of what a dog really is.
God, I really, really don’t mean to sound like a Nazi here. But these names are magically Tolkienian, and reflect an earlier time when the oral tradition had power.
..and if you’ve ever wondered why Scandinavian and other languages have a lot of consonants – it’s the terrain!
Ahl – alder
Alm – elm
Äng, Eng – meadow
Berg – rock, boulder, cliff, mountain
Björk – birch
Blom – flower
Bom – tree
Bol – farm
Borg – castle, dome-shaped hill, fortified city
Brunn – brown
Dal, Dahl – valley
Dam – dam, pond
Ek – oak
Feld – plain, pasture, open land
Fogel – bird
Fors – waterfall
Gård – fence, wall, yard
Grav – pit, ditch
Gren – branch (of a tree)
Gyllen – golden
Hall – hill, slope, big stone, flat rock – given to one who either lived in or worked in a hall (the house of a medieval noble).
Heim – home
Hus – house (c.f. Old Norse húsbóndi ‘master of a house’, from hús ‘house’ + bóndi ‘occupier and tiller of the soil’. )
Holt – Wood, rough, stony ridge
Holme – small island
Kirk, Kyrkje – church
Lager – laurel
Lång – long
Lind – linden tree
Lowe – lion
Lund – grove
Krans – crown
Kvist – branch, twig
Mark – forest
Møller – miller
Munk – monk
Neder – nether
Öst – east
Rapp – quick
Riis – brushwood
Ros – rose
Rud – clearing
Smed – smith
Stad – stead, place spot
Stark – strong
Stein – stone
Strid – fight, dispute
Ström – stream
Ståhl – steel
Sønder – south
Vagn – wagon
Vann, Vand – water
Vik – Inlet, small bay, c.f. York = Jor + vik, “horse + bay”; New York = New Horse Bay 😀
Vester, Wester – western
Vinter/Vinther – winter
These Scandinavian words are amongst the most “real,” guttural and tactile in the English language. Their very sound evokes immediacy and color:
Aloft
Anger
Awe
Awkward
Bag
Bait
Band
Bark
Bask
Berserk
Birth
Blunder
Both
Bug
Bulk
Bull
Cake
Call
Cast
Clip
Club
Cog
Cozy
Crawl
Creek
Crook
Die
Dirt
Dregs
Egg
Equip
Fellow
Flat
Flounder
Fog
Freckle
Gab
Gang
Gap
Gawk
Get
Geyser
Gift
Give
Gleen
Glitter
Glove
Guest
Gun
Gust
Haggle
Happy
Hail
Haunt
Hit
How
Hug
Husband
Ill
irk
Jolly
Kid
Kindle
Knife
Knot
Lad
Law
Leg
Lemming
Likely
Link
Litmus
Loan
Loft
Loose
Low
Lug
Maelstrom
Midden
Mink
Mire
Mistake
Muck
Mug
Muggy
Nudge
Odd
Ombudsman
Outlaw
Plough/Plow
Race
Raft
Raise
Ransack
Regret
Reindeer
Rig
Root
Rotten
Rugged
Saga – literally “receive-give”
Same
Scale
Scant
Scare
Scathe
Score
Scrape
Seat
Seem
Shake
Skate
Ski
Skid
Skip
Skirt
Skull
Sky
Slalom
Slant
Slaughter
Sledge
Sleight
Sleuth
Sly
Snare
Snub
Snug
Sprint
Spry
Stagger
Stain
Stammer
Steak
Sway
Sick
Take
Teem
Their
They
Though
Thrall
Thrift
Thrust
Thwart
Tidings
Tight
Till
Troll
Trust
Ugly
Until
Wand
Want
Weak
Whirl
Whisk
Wicker
Wile
Window
Wing
Wrong
More on Tolkien’s Nordic fascination here.
For an interesting linguistic urban legend from Finland, “The Bock Saga,” click here.
Here is me at a party as the death metal Viking:
