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Most Common Last Names in Sweden

Can you guess the 20 most common surnames in the country of Sweden?
Different spellings of the same name are grouped together
Quiz by varvoy
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Last updated: November 13, 2019
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First submittedMay 14, 2017
Times taken11,965
Average score35.0%
Rating4.40
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#
Name
1
Andersson
2
Johansson
3
Karlsson
4
Nilsson
5
Eriksson
6
Larsson
7
Olsson
#
Name
8
Persson
9
Svensson
10
Gustafsson
11
Pettersson
12
Jonsson
13
Jansson
14
Hansson
#
Name
15
Bengtsson
16
Jönsson
17
Lindberg
18
Jakobsson
19
Magnusson
20
Olofsson
+15
Level 89
Nov 13, 2019
Everyone's a son, even the daughters.
+2
Level 93
Nov 13, 2019
except one family.
+1
Level 89
Nov 14, 2019
....Bad luck to be the son in that family though.
+3
Level 67
Feb 20, 2020
The daughters of that family must be feminists.
+11
Level 84
Nov 14, 2019
But not everyone's a Persson unfortunately
+2
Level 47
Sep 21, 2020
My family name -Forsberg- has been the most common surname in Sweden not ending in -sson. I think it made top 20.
+8
Level 78
Nov 14, 2019
After 19 sons, Lindberg was impossible to guess!
+3
Level 85
Nov 14, 2019
Pelle Lindberg -- Philadelphia Flyers goalie who died in a car accident in 1985. The Flyers have yet to find a goalie to replace him.
+12
Level 85
Nov 14, 2019
Named as many Swedish hockey players I could think of.
+1
Level 72
Feb 20, 2020
This was exactly my strategy
+1
Level 88
Mar 25, 2024
As an Oilers fan, this strategy didn't help me. Neither Janmark nor Ekholm are on here ;). I wonder if Mattias would make the list for first names?!
+2
Level 63
Nov 15, 2019
Most of the Scandi countries once used the patronymic system where the fathers or grandfathers name is included in the "last" name. Iceland still does that btw.
+1
Level 72
Dec 10, 2019
Can't believe I got four of these and earned a point. I know next to nothing about Sweden.
+4
Level 82
Feb 5, 2020
Despite the rather obvious pattern here my Swedish best friend is Wichne, my former Swedish housemate is Malmqvist, two of my other Swedish acquaintances are Angborn and Karlkvist. I have also seen a doctor, who is Australian, but of Swedish descent and they're surname is Sandstrom. A surprising lack of 'sons'.
+2
Level 58
Feb 20, 2020
The -sons are definitely dominant, but after them I'd say the most common last names end in -ström, -berg, and -quist/qvist. I'm Swedish by the way.
+1
Level 63
Feb 20, 2020
10 NHL names on this list
+2
Level 74
Feb 20, 2020
Interesting how while many of these names are common in America, most of them were changed slightly upon immigration to make them more American/English sounding. Two of my ancestors would have been Sven Svensson and Bengt Bengtsson in Sweden, but they became Swen Swenson and Ben Benson in America.
+2
Level 85
Jul 9, 2020
Everyone's is like that. It's also interesting how naming conventions changed. If you meet an American named McSomething, chances are that their family came over from Scotland before the Civil War. If they're named MacSomething, chances are they came over afterwards. It's sadly reflected in the fact that I've met a lot of American black people with a "Mc" last name but never one with a "Mac" last name.
+1
Level 45
Apr 23, 2021
The reason for this is when the Swedish immigrants arrived at Ellis Island, they got registered by only saying their name, and the people writing everything down just guessed on the spelling.
+1
Level 67
Feb 20, 2020
Go on my son.
+2
Level 64
Feb 20, 2020
Carry on my wayward son
+4
Level 83
Feb 20, 2020
Typing in "Johnson" got me "Jonsson", but not "Jönsson". I would think it would be both or neither.
+1
Level 61
Feb 20, 2020
I was wondering the same thing.
+1
Level 71
May 22, 2020
I noticed that there's an odd difference between the answer stats for Jonsson and Jönsson. But this probably simply because Johnson is an alternative spelling of Jonsson, but not of Jönsson.
+2
Level 61
Feb 20, 2020
I did a lot worse than I thought I would. When none of the hockey playing -bergs or -stroms I could think of came up, I was screwed. I used a lot of those.
+6
Level 56
Feb 20, 2020
where is mohammad or something like that haha
+1
Level 58
Feb 20, 2020
um... mohammad?
+1
Level 58
Feb 20, 2020
And this is precisely why my mom refused to take my dad's childhood name Petersson.
+1
Level 64
Feb 20, 2020
Being from North Dakota, I had an advantage by guessing the names of people from my hometown.
+4
Level 80
Feb 20, 2020
Where is Ibrahimović?
+3
Level 65
Feb 21, 2020
at one point I even tried Radisson.
+1
Level 68
Apr 29, 2020
shoutout to lindberg for being original
+1
Level 66
May 17, 2020
Inputting many Swedish football player names ending in *lin and *vist but none are accepted.
+1
Level 43
Jun 18, 2020
Marcus Persson creator of minecraft.
+2
Level 19
Dec 24, 2020
Ifailedsson
+1
Level 36
Nov 3, 2021
i forgot my moms last name (gustafsson)