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ArchivesRe: origin of swedish surname Sjosten
in reply to a message by CN
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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