Inspired by another discussion elsewhere about last names.
Swedish last names that doesn’t end with -son (just means “son of”) are most commonly a “nature name” and then location names (farm, town), then uncommon soldier name and very rare noble name.
Do you know what yours mean? I know profession names are very common from some places. Include name, origin and meaning if you are comfortable!
Ps. Anyone who has a Swedish name I’m happy to translate or give info as best as I can if you want.
41 comments
Yes. Mine is profession-based but I’m not going to post it. The name of my mom’s side of the family is also profession-based (not posting that one either). Neither one is Swedish though, they are from elsewhere in Europe.
Mines just a noun, but I will say I like the history behind it.
My last name growing up was Templeton. It means “temple town.” We originated (in like the 1500s) from a place in Wales called Templeton.
yes my last name is a non-English (and non-Swedish) patronymic. I know its English derivation.
Yes, I do it is a bird, and is not that common. Actually both of my paternal grandparents have bird last names, 1 German and 1 old English.
Maternal grandparents are People of the valley/town and name that no one knows what it means
My family’s name was Americanized in the 1800s when they emigrated. We no longer know what the original form was. We know it’s an alternate form of a Polish surname (which is itself an alternate form of a common Polish first name), but the family is German and there is no German equivalent. We’ve suspected the family may have come from Prussia for this reason, but we truthfully do not know.
Fun fact: this is the case for all 4 surnames from my grandparents. They were all Americanized and their origins have been lost over the last 100-200 years.
My last name was changed in the 1640s with the first generation born here. I haven’t been able to find a meaning for the original spelling but the current spelling seems to have some similarities to a Hungarian word meaning “big man” but my family was Swiss-German and came over from Bern so as far as we know there is no Hungarian background in my family.
I didn’t, but I just looked it up. Apparently there are two possible meanings depending on which language it came from. One is more likely to be the origin, but my ancestors seem to have moved a lot, so who knows where the original ones who adopted the name were from?
Yeah, it’s a running joke in my family. It’s derived from a personality trait.
I do. I looked it up when I was confined to my house during the early pandemic. It’s actually one of the Scottish clans, albeit an unrecognized one.
Mine is simply a common Anglo-Saxon dictionary word.
I don’t even know what my last name even is. It was “Americanized” in 1860, and I believe it was changed another time in the mid 1700s.
Yes. No I won’t tell you because it’s gross.
My last name is Norwegian and follows roughly the same naming convention as Swedish. It’s not a “son/sen” name and is a small town about 500 km away from both Bergen and Oslo.
Yes. Mine is an English name for a large piece of machinery. I don’t know, but stands to reason the job of my ancestors was operating such a thing.
I know it’s of southern French origin, but I’ve seen contradictory definitions of what it means.
The closest approximation is, apparently, “Windbag”
Yes, it is of Yiddish origin and has a pretty cool meaning based on a profession, but it’s fairly uncommon so I won’t be posting it.
Yep. Mine’s an Ashkenazi artificial surname that was likely adopted some time in the 19th century due to laws mandating everyone have a last name. Prior to that you’d be *Name* son of *Dad’s Name*.
I have a Swedish last name that apparently was originally the first name of a member of my family. Imagine being so well liked that your entire family changes their last name to honor you after you die. My family loves me but not enough to do that lol.
“Curly” or that’s what I’m told.
Yes. My last name basically means my ancestors at one point were loyal to a particular petty kingdom in Ireland. (For the record folks, if you have a last name associated with a kingdom, chances are your ancestors were not part of that royalty, they were just loyal or subservient to it.)
Yes. I have three, two are in plain language (not my native language, but still) and the third I got from my wife when we married; hers is one of those antiquated names that doesn’t sound like a modern word anymore.
Apparently it means something like “tramp” or “vagrant”, which I find funny because the name I got from my own father means “small house” (possibly a euphemism for an outhouse, though).
The other one means “nobody”, and it’s what I tend to use online, as you can see.
Yes, but mine is easy. Additionally, I’m a historian and genealogist, so I have researched a lot of things related to my family and our names.
The griffin is a mythological animal, half lion, half eagle, that originated in the Levant in the 2nd millennium BCE. Its use as a surname originates from Wales and Ireland, where the Welsh form “Gruffudd”and Irish form “Gríobotha” were a given name meaning “like a griffin,” and eventually used as a surname by descendants of men named Gruffudd in Wales or Gríobotha in Ireland. My “Griffin”paternal ancestor came to America from Wales in the 1700s—or so I thought for most of my life.
As it turns out, my dad was adopted and we are actually Greek-Italian (which honestly explains a lot because we certainly don’t look Welsh! My dad has been mistaken for Indigenous, Brazilian, Romanian, Mexican, and a lot of other ethnicities).
If he hadn’t been adopted and had his name changed, it would be “Dardano,” also a surname adapted from a personal name, which is possibly from Greek “δαρδάπτω” (dardapto) meaning “to devour”, or possibly related to the body of water called the Dardanelles, named for Dardanus, the son of Zeus and Electra.
It’s interesting to me that if you trace it far enough back, both the real name of my family and the adopted name originated in mythology, and are from basically the same part of the world: the Eastern Mediterranean.
Yes, it’s a normal word in another language.
No. It’s a Scottish last name, but not a Mac-/Mc-. It is not patronymic or matronymic. No know cognominal properties. Definitely not occupational unless heavily mangled and lost. Not traceably toponymic.
There’s not many of us in the world. There is a theory by scholars (due to someone of limited fame having the same last name and their historical role there actually has been some research into it) that it was a German onomatopoeic occupational name which was transplanted to Scotland and Scottishified, but no evidence of that.
Mine is Irish in original and means “son of the servant of Saint Brigid.”
IIRC the original version of my name meant Well Lake. The current version doesn’t really mean anything.
Yes and it is an English name, but since it is of Latin and not Anglo-Saxon origin no one ever spells it right.
But here is a digression on Scandinavian names here in America. There are a lot of Scandinavian immigrants living in the state of Wisconsin — but immigrants whose families have lived here a 100 years or more. A group of us went fishing in a rural part of the state, and three of our small group had either a Norwegian or Swedish last name. We met some other fishermen and were introducing ourselves and one of our party said “my name is <first name> Berg.” An older guy in the other group looked at him suspiciously and said “ahh, a Swede” in a manner that indicated he didn’t think much about Swedes. For some reason that cracks me up (makes me laugh) still to this day.
I assume that “Berg” means town or city, but don’t really know.
Yes, but I’m not crazy about it, but it kind of fits my personality. I have an odd, and very unusual Italian name. It’s so unusual that I could easily be found. It looks very Italian, and there are very few of us alive in the world, so I won’t mention it.
I have an Italian last name, that I believe originates as a term for a person from France. Which is ironic, since I am neither Italian nor French. Makes me fit right in New Jersey though.
Yes! It’s an Italian last name, I’m
not giving away the exact meaning lol but it has roots in Naples 🙂 On my moms side, they changed their last name but it was originally Hawkinson when her great grandparents came from Sweden. Which means Son of Hauk/Hawk afaik 😅
My last name means dolphin
I have an Italian last name that doesn’t actually mean anything in Italian. It’s one letter off from a trait that runs pretty strong in the family, so the lore is that it was originally that, and it got changed when my great-grandfather came to America. These days I tell people it’s Italian for “typo at Ellis Island.”
Both my maiden name and married name are Italian but I can’t seem to find the meaning of either with a quick google search. It seems like my married name isn’t very common, I’ve never heard it before I met my husband. My maiden name isn’t very common (that I’m aware) either if I think about it.
Mine is occupational. Barrel maker.
Mine is a Scottish name that means people who live out in the hills.
I have a Swedish name that doesn’t end in -son, but yes it is a nature name! A combination of “meadow” and “small island”. I actually kind love it even if it is hard to spell and people here can’t really pronounce it lol
Yes. My father’s last name means ‘sheep shearer’ in one language, and my mother’s maiden name means ‘sheep shearer’ in a different language. So sheep.
Not comfortable posting the name, but I will say it is an English profession-based name and funnily enough, it’s extremely similar to what my dad ended up doing for a career. And my mom’s maiden name is a very traditional Norwegian last name. (Although I think it got switched to the Swedish spelling upon my great-grandpa immigrating to America.)
How about your first name? Middle initial? Home address? Last four digits of your social security number?