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Skriv ut sidan - Were out of wedlock births encouraged in the 1840's in Sweden ?.
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Titel: Were out of wedlock births encouraged in the 1840's in Sweden ?.
Skrivet av: Carl-Fredrik Hanzon skrivet 2002-08-19, 21:49
In Sweden names like Eriksson and Nilsson are wery common; some people mean that they are even too common to have any individualizing funktion. They are almost like Smith, Jones and Brown (but even more common!) in the english-speaking countries.
Of that reason a lot of people (even the ones that stayed home in Sweden), changed their namnes during the end of the 19th and the 20th centuries. That is a process still going on in Sweden. So, it is not surprising att all, that many people, who changes their lives totally by emigrating to North America, never to turn back, even changed their names at the same time.
There was also a social aspect: In Sweden, most people with influens, power and welsh; like the priest, the taxman, the sheriff and of course the landlord, had names ending with -ström, -berg, -gren, -lund etc., etc. Those names estabished a popular pattern, which many name-changers followed.