Naming practices

[Traci]

I am looking for my ggrandfather his full name was Per Ersson-Rosén, or Mats Per Ersson. Can someone explain the Mats and the Rosén part of his name. Is this a farm name? I have been told his wife's father was Annamats Erik Olsson and also Gastgifvar Erik Olsson. I am confused as to the naming practices. Is Annamats a farm name or is Gastgifvar? Thanks for explaining this to me.

[Hans Högman]

It don't think it was common for farmers to have double surnames like Ersson-Rosén.
Ersson is his patronymic surname (He is a son of Erik - Erik's son = Eriksson = Ersson).
Rosén is a typical family name.
 
Craftsmen, clergy etc used family names when they became professionals. Soldiers were given special soldier's names when they were enrolled. Many individuals in the countryside started to adopt family names during the second part of the 19th century instead of their given patronymic names. From 1901 every Swede had to carry family names.
Many people just froze their patronymic name as their family name. Thats why we still have so many -son names in Sweden.
 
Both Per and Mats are his first names (his christening names). Gastgifvar or Gästgifvare is Swedish for innkeeper, that is an occupation.
I'm not sure of the first name: Annamats? It is really two names Anna and Mats. Anna is a typical female name and Mats a male name. So Annamats doesn't make sense to me.
 
On this page you can find information on Swedish naming practices in earlier times:
http://www.algonet.se/~hogman/Naming%20practice_eng.htm
Hans

[Peter Karlsson (Peterk)]

Maybe 'Annamats' shold be 'Anders-Mats' - I think that's a kind of 'farm-name' (Anders Mats gården for example, that kind of names is common in the province of 'Dalarna'..
 
-The same can be said about the name Gästgifvars /Gästgivars.. -in Finland (and maybe also in Sweden) that's an quite common name.
It's not sure that Erik Olsson was an innkeeper, eventually he (or his ancestors) came from the 'Gästgivargården' somewhere - sometimes people keept that type of name in the family, especially in the province of 'Dalarna'..
 
-Do you know where they lived in Sweden, maybe it was in 'Dalarna' somewhere..?
 
Brgds //Peter

[Elisabeth Thorsell]

You can also find information on Swedish names at http://www.genealogi.se/roots/namneng.htm

[Fredrik Jokijärvi]

Annamat also meant/means, taken too or reciving. So you can annama an idea or a name or perhaps even a person. But if youre Annamats has anything to do with this i don't know.

[Kristina Gunnarsdotter]

Correction to the previous letter:  
 
The verb anamma is written like this. One n and double m, and the beginning a is not a capital.

[Fredrik Jokijärvi]

Thanks for the correction, but in SAOB (Swedish academys wordlist) it says that the word has had a lot of different spellings, one of these annama (1811) and in the beginning of a sentence the a would be a capital. But today we spell it anamma.

[Eva Leksell]

Annamats seems to be (or have been) the name of a farm in Malung parish in Dalarna. You can look at a website belonging to a Mats Häger, with several examples of people having this name in front of their ordinary name.
( members.tripod.com/~masgen/ingelb08.htm )
 
Annamats Anna Matsdotter who had a daughter born in Grimsåker, Malung 1815 Nov 11.
 
Annamats Karolina Olsdotter, born 1878 May 5 in Backa, Malung, daughter to Annamats Olof Ersson.
 
Maybe there was originally an Anna Matsdotter (Mats Dotter) who had her name shortened to Anna Mats'.
 
By searching the Internet -  by www.google.com - you will also find a guy living in Malung who has the e-mail adress annamats@hotmail.com... So the farm may still exist.