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ArchivesRe: origin of swedish surname Sjosten
in reply to a message by Tony Bettfuehr
Correctly spelled Sjosten is Sjösten. Sjö means lake and sten means stone. Nature names like Sjösten is very common in Sweden and I don't think it has any special origin but maybe someone knows more about that than me.
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The sleep of reason brings forth monsters - F. Goya
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Favorites : Ellen and August
The sleep of reason brings forth monsters - F. Goya
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You're right about "no Special origin", in fact it's one of those Swedish surnames made up from a list of words for natural features or objects. Surnames became compulsory at a late date in Sweden. The government, rightly guessing that most people would simply adopt their current patronymic as a surname, offered a list of words and suggested that citizens combine two to produce a new name. Sjo, sten, berg, strom, kvist, gren, are some of those words. As you might guess there were some strange results.
In spite of all these arrangements the commonest Swedish surnames are of the patronymic type; Johansson, Andersson, etc.
In spite of all these arrangements the commonest Swedish surnames are of the patronymic type; Johansson, Andersson, etc.
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My surname is Sjösten, now translated to the English Seastone. We can trace our family with that surname for at least three centuries. So Sjösten is not a new name created at the turn of the last century when the last name referred to the parent’s first name with son or daughter as a suffix.
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