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.

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.
- Andersson
- Johansson
- Karlsson
- Nilsson
- Eriksson
- Larsson
- Olsson
- Persson
- Svensson
- Gustafsson
- Pettersson
- Jonsson
- Jansson
- Hansson
- Bengtsson
- Jönsson
- Lindberg
- Jakobsson
- Magnusson
- Olofsson
- Lindström
- Lindqvist
- Lindgren
- Axelsson
- Berg
- Bergström
- Lundberg
- Lundgren
- Lind
- Lundqvist
- Mattsson
- Berglund
- Fredriksson
- Sandberg
- Henriksson
- Forsberg
- Sjöberg
- Wallin
- Engström
- Eklund
- Danielsson
- Håkansson
- Lundin
- Gunnarsson
- Björk
- Bergman
- Holm
- Samuelsson
- Fransson
- Wikström
- Isaksson
- Bergqvist
- Nyström
- Arvidsson
- Holmberg
- Löfgren
- Ali
- Söderberg
- Mohamed
- Nyberg
- Blomqvist
- Claesson
- Mårtensson
- Nordström
- Lundström
- Eliasson
- Pålsson
- Viklund
- Björklund
- Berggren
- Sandström
- Lund
- Nordin
- Ström
- Åberg
- Hermansson
- Ekström
- Holmgren
- Hedlund
- Falk
- Sundberg
- Dahlberg
- Hellström
- Sjögren
- Abrahamsson
- Ek
- Blom
- Martinsson
- Öberg
- Ahmed
- Andreasson
- Hassan
- Månsson
- Strömberg
- Åkesson
- Hansen
- Jonasson
- Norberg
- Åström
- Sundström
These names are the most common last names in Sweden, as of December 2019.
You can read more of our worldlastnames.com articles below.
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