Swedish Last Names – What’s With The -son?

Most Common Swedish Last Names

 

Chances are, you’ve heard Swedish last names before. If you have, you might have notice that they are very easily identifiable, because almost one third of Swedish last names end in the suffix -son.

It’s not surprising that of the most popular Swedish surnames, the majority of them are -son ending names. There is a very good reason for this.

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What do Swedish Surnames Endings Mean?

So, what does this mean? Well, last names ending in -son are a patronymic. A patronymic is when the first name of the father is used as part of the surname of the child. Take, for example, Karlsson. The fathers name would be Karl, so the patronymic surname would be Karlsson, meaning Son of Karl.

Now, that explains a third of Swedish last names. The rest are made up of words relating to nature. The most commonly used words in Swedish names are as follows, with their meaning.

Ström – stream
Berg – mountain/hill
Ek – oak
Sjö – lake/sea
Sund – sea gate/strait
Å – small stream/creek
Ö – island
Björk – birch
Ny – new
Söder – south
Lund – small forrest
Gren – branch
Fors – cataract
Vik – bay
Holm – little island
Qvist/Kvist – twig

So, take a look at the top 100 Swedish last names, and see if you can figure out what they mean, using the information we have provided above.

 

List of the 100 Most Common Last Names in Sweden

Most popular Swedish surnames in descending order.

  1. Andersson
  2. Johansson
  3. Karlsson
  4. Nilsson
  5. Eriksson
  6. Larsson
  7. Olsson
  8. Persson
  9. Svensson
  10. Gustafsson
  11. Pettersson
  12. Jonsson
  13. Jansson
  14. Hansson
  15. Bengtsson
  16. Jönsson
  17. Lindberg
  18. Jakobsson
  19. Magnusson
  20. Olofsson
  21. Lindström
  22. Lindqvist
  23. Lindgren
  24. Axelsson
  25. Berg
  26. Bergström
  27. Lundberg
  28. Lundgren
  29. Lind
  30. Lundqvist
  31. Mattsson
  32. Berglund
  33. Fredriksson
  34. Sandberg
  35. Henriksson
  36. Forsberg
  37. Sjöberg
  38. Wallin
  39. Engström
  40. Eklund
  41. Danielsson
  42. Håkansson
  43. Lundin
  44. Gunnarsson
  45. Björk
  46. Bergman
  47. Holm
  48. Samuelsson
  49. Fransson
  50. Wikström
  51. Isaksson
  52. Bergqvist
  53. Nyström
  54. Arvidsson
  55. Holmberg
  56. Löfgren
  57. Ali
  58. Söderberg
  59. Mohamed
  60. Nyberg
  61. Blomqvist
  62. Claesson
  63. Mårtensson
  64. Nordström
  65. Lundström
  66. Eliasson
  67. Pålsson
  68. Viklund
  69. Björklund
  70. Berggren
  71. Sandström
  72. Lund
  73. Nordin
  74. Ström
  75. Åberg
  76. Hermansson
  77. Ekström
  78. Holmgren
  79. Hedlund
  80. Falk
  81. Sundberg
  82. Dahlberg
  83. Hellström
  84. Sjögren
  85. Abrahamsson
  86. Ek
  87. Blom
  88. Martinsson
  89. Öberg
  90. Ahmed
  91. Andreasson
  92. Hassan
  93. Månsson
  94. Strömberg
  95. Åkesson
  96. Hansen
  97. Jonasson
  98. Norberg
  99. Åström
  100. Sundström

These names are the most common last names in Sweden, as of December 2019.

Source

 

You can read more of our worldlastnames.com articles below.

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  11. Most Popular Polish Last Names
  12. Nordic Last Names

 

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