Last Names

[Bill Gustavson]

I was wondering how last names were given/taken.  I understand that the usual practice is for the children to use the father's first name and add -son or -dotter.  However, some names aren't as recognizable, such as last names that end with -gren.  Do last names contain clues to where or what someone had done or been?

[Åke Bjurström]

Hello Bill
On Rötter, start page.
To the left, In English.
Scroll down to Useful knowledge, Swedish names
Åke

[Bill Gustavson]

Thanks Åke,
That explains what I've been looking for, except that it didn't list the name I was searching.  Two of my ancestors (so far) have different last names Häll and another named Hallgren.  Häll is added to the end of his name Jonas Danielsson Häll.  He served as a horse soldier.  What does Häll translate to?
As for the other name Hallgren, I'm not sure how that name came about.  The person is Maria Christina Olivia Hallgren b. 29/10 1850.  Father- Jacob (Krejans ?) and Mother- Johanna Lisa (no last name given)  I cannot read the birth record correctly (GID 2651.6.40100)  She was an illegitamate child. I can't find her anywhere else except in a household examination for Hemse in Gotland GID 2674.14 p.22 lines 14-19.
Can you help me figure out how both names came about?
Bill

[Elisabeth Thorsell]

Hi Bill, you can read an informative article on Swedish names here: http://www.genealogi.se/roots/nwonamn.htm

[Gunilla Brolund]

Hi Bill,
 
Häll in itself means flat rock. By the way, it is pronounced just as hell :-D
In a more figurative sense it also means slab/stone slab/top of a stove/hearth.
 
Hallgren consists of two words, hall which means hall or lounge in modern Swedish, and gren which means branch of twig.
 
This may sound peculiar in your ears. It doesn't in our ears, we are used to it. In England, Bridgewater is a not so uncommon surname. Translated to Swedish, it is an impossible surname. It is all a matter of what you are used to.
 
Well, where did these names come from? The answer is that people made them up. It is not a modern phenomena that some things suddenly becomes modern. That is what happened in the late 1800's. It became modern and popular to skip your patronymic and get another name. And there was no law prohibiting it. Such a law didn't come until the early 1900's. So until then, you only had to tell the clergyman in your village that you had adopted a new name, and so it was registered.
 
So when my husband's great great grandfather in the 1880's left the small village of Sandhem, where he was born, and moved to another county and another village to get a job in a factory, he adopted the name of Sandström. We can't say for sure, of course, but it is a good guess that the first part of the name is from his home village Sandhem. And the second part? Well, I guess it just sounded good in his ears. And it was a common ending. “Ström” means current, today mostly in the sense of electricity, in those days probably fast-running water. So, “current” is a common ending (or beginning) of a Swedish surname, but “water” is not. It is all a matter of what is modern and popular, and what you are used to.
 
My own great grand-father, Per Persson, adopted the name of Brolund (bro = bridge, lund = groove). Where he got “bro” from we have no idea, there is no village or anything like that with a “bro” in it where he came from. But there was another family, in another parish not so far off, that had started using that name. Perhaps he met some of them, and took a fancy to the name?
 
Best regards,
Gunilla

[Bill Gustavson]

Gunilla,
Thanks for a more in depth explanation.  And according to what you had said, I guess that perhaps the person I am looking for had no father and therefore couldn't/didn't take his name, so she made one up.  Makes more sense now, but more difficult to find her in the records.
Thanks agaim
Bill

[Stefan Dake]

Hello again Bill! (and Gunilla)
 
Gunilla took the words out of my mouth, almost word by word. Just a comment about the name 'Hallgren'. As Gunilla says, people often took their names after his or hers homestead. Both Maria Christina Olivia and her mother Johanna Lisa were born in the parish 'Halla'.
And a little correction. Jacob was not Maria Christina Olivia's father, he was her grandfather! I thought too, at first, that he was the father, but when I last night looked closer into the birth record I saw that it says (very shortened): .... Maria Christina Olivia, daughter of Jacob's daughter Johanna Lisa..... More about her under your question 'Village location in this same topic.
Talking about names, my own name, Dake, is completely meaningless. It's a pure construction. It was 'invented' by my grandmother in 1919. She, and my grandfather, was named Jansson. She was a keen amateur photographer and cinéast. After what my father told me some fifty years ago, she once saw a movie (american) where one of the actresses was named Daker. My grandmother liked that name, but cut off the ending 'r' making it sound better when pronounced in swedish. It is pronounced almost like 'dark' but with the ending 'e'.
 
regards Stefan