Venard -- a Swedish name?

[Andrea Flanagan]

My granddad's name was Venard.  He was born in America of Swedish-born parents.  I have never heard of anyone else with his name.  Is it Swedish?  Or maybe a variation of Bernard?  He pronounced it with the emphasis on the first syllable, Ven, so it doesn't quite sound like the way we pronounce Bernard.  Any ideas?
 
Andrea

[Maria Svärd]

HI Andrea,
I have never seen this name in Sweden.
Maybe it could have been Verner?
 
Brgds
Maria Svärd

[Ann Little]

Hello Andrea, Venard is a French surname.  
 
Kind regards,
Ann Little

[Andrea Flanagan]

That's very interesting.  Venard's granddad chose the surname Levin upon immigration to America.  It is most probably of French origin, also.  I've read a bit about a Swedish facination with all things French in the late 1800's.  Maybe the names chosen by my family reflect that.

[Ingela Martenius]

Levin is a Swedish name; there are at present at least 1.000 persons in Sweden with Levin as surname.
Venard pronounced the way you describe it, is very Swedish; we pronounce e.g. Bernard that way. Maybe your grandfather's parents had made friends with a French family in the States? Or they may just have seen the name somewhere - the late 19th century was in Sweden the time of the great name experiments, given names as well as surnames, and of course your greatgrandparents carried that idea with them to the States where it was further developed by the realisation that Americans could use surnames as given names.
 
No, Swedes were not very fascinated with French things in the 19th century - that was a century earlier. In the late 19th century they were fascinated with English and above all American things; today many Swedes worry that we are becoming too Americanized - but it actually started already in the 1850's, as is shown in the thesis by Tom O'Dell (Ph.D. in ethnology, Lund university).
 
Ingela

[Andrea Flanagan]

Thank you for correcting me on my Swedish history.  I've learned so much since beginning my ancestry research, I've gotten my facts confused a bit.