Change of name in 1700's?

[Darren Pine]

Hello everybody, This is my first post on here. I have been going back through early records in Hässjö to find more family members for my ancestor Jacob Larsson. With a fresh set of eyes, I have now discovered that he used the name Svensson in early years, and actually the only record he is described as Larsson is his widow's burial record, which is the first one I found previously.
Jacob Larsson of Krigsbyn had several children with his wife, Helena Olofsdotter, including a son, Olof Jacobsson, in 16 Feb 1747. Looking at Olof's record again, it does seem to be Jacob Svensson. Have I got it all wrong, and mixed up two families, or has Jacob changed his name for some reason? Was this a usual occurrence?

[Hasse Hultman]

Larsson means son of Lars and Svensson means son of Sven. Larsson and Svensson are not really names, but a denomination of who was his father. This means in turn that a Svensson could not change his name to Larsson. You must try to find another explanation for the differences in names you have seen. Find all children and check the father's name and find the wedding record and check the names. Finally the widow might have re-married with a Larsson.

[Moderator English]

Thread transfered from General questions as it concerns Names.

[Anna-Carin Betzén]

As the patronymic Larsson only appears once, yet another possibility is that the parson simply wrote the wrong name. Perhaps the name was on the top of his mind because he'd just written an entry about a Larsson, or maybe he knew a Jacob Larsson.

[Darren Pine]

Thanks for your replies. Both of those options have occurred to me: Helena re-marrying, or the parson writing the wrong name. I had already looked for a second marriage for Helena, unsuccessfully. I will try again. I will go back and check if there isn't a Larsson neaby in the records, and also double-check all of the records. When I looked at several of the children's births, they were all Svensson. There is no marriage record for Jacob and Helena that I could find in the Hässjö records. And as for Jacob's burial in 1768, the more I look at it, the more I was unsure, although I think it is Svensson.

[Darren Pine]

Looking at the earlier records (the children's births), I was still not certain. However, studying Jacob's burial record, I looked at nearby records for other instances of a capital L and S. On the page before, I found a Lissa with almost exactly the same style in the first letter. Also on that page was a Simon, and the S was completely different.  
Looks like it is Larsson after all. I have to say, this is the first time I have ever been stumped with the handwriting.
By the way, is there anyone with access to the Hässjö records who tell me what Jacob's occupation was in his burial record please? C:1, image 132, page 128 on arkivsdigital ( not sure if those numbers are universal).

[Jan Kärrman]

It is definitely Larsson in the burial record, and he is called Kyrkowärden (churchwarden).
 
Also, he died from ledwerk och bröstwerk (joint pains and breast pains).
 
/Jan

[Darren Pine]

Thank you very much, Jan. Most times I can either work out what each record says, but occasionally I find a word that stumps me. This one I couldn't work out at all.
joint pains and breast pains sounds very much like a heart attack, doesn't it?