Secrets of Scandinavian Baby Naming Patterns

 

In the Scandinavian countries of old, people often followed a pattern of naming babies based on the order of their birth. They gave Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish babies names from both sides of the family in a predictable order, which is good to know if you’re trying to piece together who’s who in your family tree.

 

Sometimes, families made exceptions. We’ll get to those, but first, here is the naming pattern:

• The first son was usually named after his paternal grandfather
• The first daughter was named after her paternal grandmother
• The second son was named after his maternal grandfather
• The second daughter was named after her maternal grandmother

Subsequent babies might be named for great-grandparents and possibly aunts and uncles. And the order might occasionally change, with the first daughter being named for the maternal grandmother.

Exceptional Cases

However, if a child was born to a widow or widower who had remarried, the baby was named after the deceased spouse. If a parent died before his or her child was baptized, that baby was usually named after the deceased parent, and the name was feminized if necessary.

If a child died, the next child born of that gender might be given the same name as the deceased child. Sometimes, because more than one child died, several children in a family would have been given the same first name.

And at least in Norway, if a couple moved in and took over the bride’s family’s farm, they might upend the system a bit by naming their first son after the child’s maternal grandmother.

Here is an Ancestry overview specifically on Swedish family research that would thrill me if I were researching my Swedish genealogy.

When the Pattern Doesn’t Pan Out

Sometimes, after careful scrutiny, you might find these naming patterns don’t seem to fit your Scandinavian family’s practices. If that’s the case, consider: Maybe you have missed some of the children that were born to a particular family. Or did your ancestors live in a city, where naming practices were not as traditional as they were in more rural areas? Perhaps it was simply a later era when the tradition was loosening up.

But in general, it’s amazing how helpful it can be to know the basics of traditional naming practices in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. You can often find your way back two generations on a family tree merely by looking at the children’s names in a family. If the eldest son was Peter, his father’s father was probably a Peter. You’ll still need to check your facts, but if you’re at a loss it’s a very good clue. The secondborn was Hans? The mother’s father was probably named Hans.

And so on. Good luck!

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