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Särskilda ämnen & övrigt => _Archives => Discussions in English => Archive - Swedish names => Ämnet startat av: Nancy Jaderen skrivet 2005-06-04, 20:59
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My husband has two ancestors that have another first name as in Säl-Per and Gulich-Lars. Not all the children carry this extra name. Does Gulich and Säl have a special meanin?
Nancy Jaderen
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Hi Nancy,
Sometimes people would have the name of where they came from or of what disposition they may have been put infront of their christian names, as a way of destinguishing them from other people with same first name.
In the case of Säl-Per and Gulich-Lars I really don't know as I have no way of knowing if they are placenames of something else. Gulich doesn't sound Swedish; could it be a misspelling of the word 'gullig' meaning cute or appealing? And, in that case should 'Säl' be either 'säll' meaning blissfull or blessed. Maybe it should be 'snäll' which means kind?
Kind regards,
Ann
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Nancy,
probably your ancestors came from Dalarna (Dalecarlia) where it was common to use the name of the home in combination with the first name.
This prefixes often are a bit strange even for people outside this area, so it's not so easy to tell the meaning with them unless you are familiar with the dialect.
There are now living people with the names Sälj xxxx.
We have a well known singer called Busk Margit Jonsson.
Plese note that there shouldn't be any hyphen in the name. In pronounciation the stress should be on the first part.
Best regards
Stig Geber
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Gullik, with spelling variations, is a name from northern Sweden.
But it would probably be helpful if you tell us where these people lived and when?
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I'm sure that Gullik-Lars means son of Gullik or from a farm called Gullik -farm named after it's owner.( it could be an owner long ago.) It isn't unusual to use this form marking out from which family or the farm a person was related of. More common in old days -but also in use today. And not only in Dalarna -but in Dalarna it became more used and most known.And still are.
In my homevillage in Jämtland there are a lot of farms with names as Klockars ; the owner was a parish clerk (klockare) very long ago -but the todays owner is a farmer; and an other farm is called Olsjuls means Olof Sjulson's farm and that is one of the oldest family-farms in Jämtland and the old farm-name still exist. ( over 600 years old) But the farmowner or his familymembers (x) of today are still called Olsjuls-x or x in Olsjuls even if the farmowner of today is not a relative of Olof Sjulson ( or Olof Sigurdsson)!
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Thank you all. This helps me to understand some of the practices in old Sweden. I have also foun a Gummats Per from Åsen. The other two were born on Älvdalen.
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Nancy, you can read more on the farmnames from Dalarna here.
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Thank you,Elisabeth. This really explains a lot and clears up a lot of confusion.I really am appreciative of all the help I have recieved from Anbytarforum even though some of the questions may be unanswerable or redundant.
Nancy Jaderen