For instance, Jorgenson might mean "Son of Jorgens," but at some point it was adopted to simply be a last name that got passed down. At what point did this happen? Was it a sudden or gradual change? Why did it happen?
1901 Naming Law:
In early Sweden such surnames also were not fixed, but changed from generation to generation. Such patronyms gradually declined as a proportion of all surnames, as families adopted more permanent surnames in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The 1901 Naming Law called for each family to have a family surname passed unchanged across generations, thus freezing in place these previously changing patronyms.
Source: http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/The%20Son%20Also%20Rises/Sweden%202014.pdf pg.10
This is a very interesting paper about social mobility in Sweden based on type of surname. Basically, upper class names are better represented in law school than lower class names.
Follow up question: how and why (christianity?) Nordic names change from being mental/ physical descriptive ( Svein Forkbeard, Harald Bluetooth) to a direct-ancestor based? Or maybe is it a name given (much) later by scribes, historians and general public (like most of the Polish kings)?
hi! you may find some relevant info in the FAQ*
but meanwhile, here a more closely-related thread
*see the link on the sidebar or the wiki tab
This is for Sweden only, as I do not have any specific information on Denmark and Norway.
The authorities started to encourage people to switch to using their fathers' last names instead of patronyms arounf the 1840-1850s, but it was not signed into law until, as /u/pySSK says, in the naming law of 1901.
Before that, there were 5 types of names in Sweden.
Patronym names - ie adding -sson after the name of your father - Karl Svensson's son would be named Johan Karlsson, and so on.
Priest names - ie adding -eaus after the place name where the priest served, such as Kalle Moreaus.
Soldier names - ie short, descriptive names such as Rask (Quick), Stark (Strong) or Stål (Steel).
Noble names - ie what they had on their coat of arms. Wasa (V and W are interchangable in Swedish), who would provide King Gustav I and his line and end the Kalmar Union had a Vase (grain sheaf) in their coat of arms. Likewise, Natt och Dag (Night and Day) had a simple blue and yellow field in their coat of arms.
Foreign names - ie many of the burghers in Sweden were of Low German or Dutch extraction and kept their names. Walloon smiths and miners were invited in the 1600s. Mercenaries came from Frisia, the Netherlands, Scotland and Germany, both regular soldiers and noble officers served Sweden during its many wars and some settled in Sweden afterwards. People from Finland, Kexholm, Ingria, Estonia and Livonia (today part of Latvia), which were parts of Sweden during the 1500-1700s could also end up in Sweden.
During the 1800s, the increasing burgher middle class started taking nature-based names or even noble-sounding names to distinguish themselves from the peasants. This was also adapted by the fishng and sailing population of the archipelagos, but with a twist. Thus, we get a final category of names in Sweden after this.
Patronymic were most common in Sweden during the eighteen hundreds and was abolished in 1966. But by then it was very rare occurrence. So there was more a long and gradual change.
Interestingly enough, January 1st 2015 it will be reintroduced as a legitimate way of adopting a surname.
In Denmark, family names were required for everyone from 1828.
The first law requiring a family name was from 1526, when King Frederik I required the noble families to use them. Under J. F. Struensee, it was in 1771 required that every family in the Danish controlled duchies of Slesvig-Holstein used a family name. The law was planned for the rest of Denmark proper in the near future, although that was stopped by Struensees execution.
In 1828 the law was finally rolled out for the rest of the population, requiring every family to continue to use the patronym they were currently using, in the hope that it would be easier to distinguish between peoples names. This backfired, since by then 80% of the population were using a "-sen" name, leading to a law change in 1904 where people were allowed to get a one time family name change, in the hope of increasing the number of used family names. The law also had to be tightened in 1856 to make sure more families started using proper family names, not patronyms.
Today, 19 of the 20 most used family names in Denmark end with "-sen", these 19 names cover roughly 2 million of the 5.6 million Danes (The last name being "Møller", litterally "Miller", as in the profession). Other often used Danish names include the suffix "-gård" or "-gaard", litterally "farm", originally after the family farms name.
I would just like to point out that patronymics are still practiced in Iceland.
