| Subject: |
Re: MEANING OF "LOFGREN" |
| Author: |
Jim Young (guest, 195.195.244.70) |
| Date: |
January 5, 2005 at 4:38:45 AM |
| Reply to: |
MEANING OF "LOFGREN" by MIKE |
It doesn't mean anything really. The literal meaning is "leaf-branch", but what does that tell you about your ancestors? Only that they were Swedish.
In Sweden most people didn't have hereditary surnames until about 1800, when the government ordered all citizens to adopt permanent surnames. Fearing that most would settle for existing patronymics based on a few forenames (as happened in Denmark), the govt. published lists of words, and suggested that a combination of two of these could be used to make a surname. The chosen words were mainly drawn from nature and the landscape, and mainly monosyllables. Examples of suggested words are - ek (oak), berg (mountain), strom (stream), lund (wood), gren (branch). So many Swedish surnames are made up of two such syllables, some of these actually resemble genuine toponymic surnames, e.g., eklund (oak wood).
In spite of the govt's precautiary measure the commonest Swedish surnames are patronymics, such as Johansson and Andersson.
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