Having A Baby In Norway – Baby Names
One of the hardest things to do when having a baby in a bi-national family is choosing names for your baby. Most Norwegian names will get you teased in English speaking countries and a lot of English speaking names will be mispronounced in Norway. As Moose and I live in Norway we thought it appropriate to find Norwegian names that would not be used for teasing in English speaking countries – and boy is it difficult!
There are a lot of common names in Norway that just won’t do, especially in Australia, for example:
Dag, pronounced Dahg, is a common name for boys in Norway. However, in Australia the word ‘dag’ is a friendly teasing name given to someone who has done something really silly. ‘dag’ in Australia actually means the clotted fleece under a sheep’s bottom made by pooh. So you can see how this name is not good for an Australian audience.
Åse, pronounced Aw-seh, is a common name for girls in Norway. However, in Australia you can misinterpret the mean into a few forms of ‘bottom’.
Wenche, pronounced Vehn-keh, is well known in Norway as a girls name. Australian males would delight in being allowed to call someone this name in public.
Odd is a common boys name in Norway. This would just make people hysterical in Australia (especially if his last name was ‘Person’ (pronounced Pear-shon in Norway).
Moose and I have gone through so many names. It was always me who didn’t like the names. I’ve finally realised that a lot of the Norwegian sounds seem very dorky to listen to as an English speaker and, unfortunately, a lot of the Norwegian names are used as joke names in the English speaking world. However, there was one element that I wasn’t thinking about when choosing a Norwegian name and that is ‘origin and meaning’. In Norway the meaning of names are quiet important. A lot of names come from Old Norse during the Viking Age. Names were written in runes on stones and in sagas and it is surprising that a lot of the names haven’t changed to this day: Geir still means ‘spear’, Bjorn still means ‘bear’ and Hilda still means valkyrie. So in order to get my head around Norwegian names, I started to study them out. Hence the creation of the Norwegian Name Day series (first post: Norwegian Name Days in July).
It has been a lot easier now for me to accept Norwegian names as I now have an understanding of origin and meaning. A lot of Norwegian names have a prefix and a suffix which are used to describe a person such as:
Torvald: ‘Tor‘ or ‘Þórr‘ meaning ‘god of thunder or strong‘ and ‘-valdr‘ meaning ‘ruler‘.
Sigve: ‘Sigr‘ meaning ‘victory‘ and ‘-veig‘ meaning ‘powerful‘.
Still in tradition today are the prefix and suffix Norwegian names. In English we would see the first name as a first name and the second name as a second name, but in Norway is it usual to have two names as a first name: Per-Bjorn and Tord Eirik etc. And because of this you normally don’t have a middle name. If there is a middle name it is usually the mothers maiden name or something similar.
Another concern I had was ‘nicknames’. Australians are notorious with nicknames – if you are called ‘Scott’ then ‘…no friends’ would follow, if you where an ‘Anna’ then you’d be called a ‘goanna’ and if your last name was Simpson you’d be called ‘Simo’. However in Norway they don’t use nicknames at all. They usually just shorten the first (compound) name to make life easier. For example Per-Bjorn might be shortened to just ‘Per’.
In Norway they have very strict rules on baby names and we will be posting about that shortly. However, there are some very beautiful names in Norwegian too like: Aurora, Linnea and Maia, Andrea, Kai and Finn. But each to their own, I guess.
Here are a few websites that we particularly like which present Norwegian baby names with statistics, origin and meaning, etc:
www.norskenavn.no (in Norwegian)
www.behindthename.com (in English)
www.nordicnames.de (in English)
A Collation of Viking Names (in English)
Happy Hunting!
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Even though the males are called bulls and the females cows, the muskoxen are more closely related to sheep than cattle. Make no mistake, though – this is not your average cuddly ba-ba-blacksheep! A grown animal can be 2,5 m long and weigh up to 400 kgs, and their long curved horns mean business.
DaHubby and I went thru his family tree back several generations (including 3 or 4 who lived in Sweden) to find more “old-fashioned” Swedish names for our lil ones.
Oskar was a favorite for my boy but we worried about “Oscar Meyer wiener” or “Oscar the Grouch” from Sesame Street jokes. Dag or Dage was another one that we struggled with.
Anya and Svea were favorites for my girl, along with Annarika (a combination from a great, great aunt named Anna Rika Soderholm) LOL
While I don’t normally publish my lil ones names, but in this context on this topic, I’ll make a one-time exception (LOL)…we ended up proudly choosing “Linnea” (another great aunt) and “Erik” (after a dear brother-in-law).
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from L-Jay:
I love how Scandinavia spells ‘oskar’ with a k. There was one name that I really liked: Anniken, a girl name but, you know… ‘Anakin Skywalker’…lol. We have a few Linneas in our family too
Oskar will be featured in our Name Days in August post. The Name Day Oskar is actually the 5th of August – sorry we haven’t got it out in time, we’ve been a little preoccupied with my pregnancy. But here are a few details:
Oskar
Old Norse: ásgeirr
ás/ós meaning ‘god’ and ‘-geirr’ meaning spear
We will be posting this month soon and it will include the Runes, Runestone inscriptions and related Viking stories etc.
How interesting to read this. I actually recognized a few of my relatives’ names in your list. I have an Uncle Bjorn and Odd. My paternal grandmother’s name was Aslaug Svera and people in the US called her Vera.
My niece was named Kristin, which they were told was the Norwegian spelling.
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from L-Jay:
We have a ‘Kristin’ in our family too – it’s the female version of Kristian (Christian in English).
We have 5 kids and soon will have 6. I’ve tried unsuccessfully to persuade my wife to use Norwegian names for many of our children.
If number six ends up being a girl – I’m pushing and pushing and pushing – she will hopefully be named Linnea.
My wife is still not convinced – perhaps a visit to the northern regions of Norway would convince her that some women named Linnea have truly angelic qualities.
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from L-Jay:
Ah, maybe the Is This Love post can give her a glimpse of what we already know.
My sister (in Salt Lake City)and my aunt (in northern Norway) are both named Linnea, and both are angels…
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from L-Jay:
Yes, that name is very popular in the family…lol. Our Lilu was also called after her Farmor. So we have three Linneas in our family and counting… I looked up the flower ‘Linnea’ and it is so elegantly beautiful. I think the thing that impressed on me the most was that it is also called a ‘twin’ flower as it grows two flowers on each stem. This flower has twice as much beauty and gives twice as much joy
wenche hahaha. i never thought of how close it sounds to… well, you know.
i listen to footy on the weekends and i find it fascinating how no players are called by their real names. almost as fascinating as how set norwegians are in giving their kids old-fashioned norwegian names which are difficult to pronounce for those who can’t speak norwegian. just one of those things they do, i guess.
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from L-Jay:
I know a couple of different Russian girls who are called ‘Svetlana’. This name makes people smirk in Norway as Svett means ‘sweaty’. I can’t get Sweaty-lana out of mind now as when you are learning Norwegian you start by translating everything in your head first…lol.
I know where you’re coming from with this. My husband is South African, and when we were thinking of names for our son, we had to think about how the names could possibly lose their Scandinavian origin when married up with his surname.
I also have another factor – my dad is Norwegian, and my mum is Danish AND there was my family to “please & appease” and my husband’s family, too. In the end, we plumped for the Danish version of Thorbjørn, which was very popular at the time our son was born (at least two members of the Danish football team who won the 1992 European Cup had the same name) and we then gave him my Norwegian grandfather’s name and my husband’s (English) family name that all boys in his family have.
I recently asked my son whether he was happy with the name we had chosen for him, and he said “yes”. He did have to deal with some ribbing when we first arrived here, and there have been interesting spellings of his name!
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from L-Jay:
Ah, Thorbjørn is an old Viking name. Thor/Tor/Ϸor/Ϸór means ‘god of thunder, strength’ and -bjorn/-bjórn/-bjørn means ‘bear’. So: ‘god of thunder-bear’ or Thunder-Bear or ‘he who holds the strength of a bear’. I’m actually working on this name in the Norwegian Name Day posts which will have Runic inscriptions, sagas and Viking info attached to the name.
We host a number of Norwegian students and they have wonderful names! Eirik, Tore (tough to pronounce correctly!)Kristin, Randi and others like Oyvind, Camilla, Raghnhilde? Rune, Nora, Marthe, Siri, Nina, Anne Marie, Silja, Marianne, Oystein and many others…there are many great choices!Blessings on your little Nordlander-to-be!
)
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from L-Jay:
In choosing names sometimes I say ‘how about this name or that name’ and Moose has to tell me ‘no, no, only grandmas are called that’ or ‘that’s a jailbirds name’ …lol. Because I don’t really know ‘Norwegianess’ yet (which comes a lot through social norms and pop culture) I don’t understand the perception of certain names in Norway. But I’ll get there…lol.
Cheers
Everyone laughs and thinks I’m making it up when I talk about my Uncle Ole. (Ole and Lena jokes are standard among Norwegian-Americans). But when I tell them that I had a grandpa named Ole, whose brother was also named Ole and whose sister was Oline, they just plain can’t believe it. And I won’t even go into what they say when I mention Aunt Magna. My paternal grandmother was Ingeborg, but when I wanted to give that name to one of my daughters, all hell broke loose. So I do know Norwegian names are problematic to English speakers. And by the way, you should hear how everyone mangled my father’s name, which was Bjarne. All those names seem perfectly normal to me . . . .
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from L-Jay:
Ole/Ola/Olav/ (and the feminine Oline) is still a very popular name even today in Norway. I have many friends by this name. The name is actually Old Norse from the Viking Age. oláfr or aleifr: á meaning ‘ancestor’ and ‘-leifr’ meaning legacy. The name features in many of the Icelandic Sagas (where some good record keeping Vikings Settled) and there are many Runic inscriptions that have these names.
Ole/Ola/Olav is also a royal name in Norway – ‘the name of the kings’. You can read a little more in the Name Days in July post (29th July).
But I think you are more than right to be very proud of this name in your family – if anyone smirks give them a ‘LOTR’ answer: it’s the name of Kings in Norway.
Magna is the feminine of Magnus which means ‘magnificent and great’. This is a heros name in Norway and I personally like it very much
it is also the name of Norwegian kings.
Ingeborg will be an interesting name to research (I haven’t got up to this one in the Name Days post series yet).
Bjarne is another version of Bjorn/Björn/Bjørn which means ‘bear’.
All these names at first were a little odd to me but now since I have studied them out they are becoming a part of my normal psyche too…lol – does this mean I’m becoming Norwegianise?
Another one in the same category as “Odd Person” (it’s an actual guy in Sweden: Urban Landmark.
Yes, and my name is Countryside Milestone
You mentioned how they are strict with names, here in Norway. Do they have a list of approved names that they show you later on or is there a site? Or as long as you pick a Norwegian like name it doesn’t matter?
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from L-Jay:
If you are not from Norway they are more lenient because you have a different tradition, but if you want a name like Tigerlilly or Ace Ventura, they will likely question the reason. They are looking out for the best interest of the child. All regular names are generally fine but the understanding of them are different. In English you have a first and middle name but in Norwegian these names are both classed as your first name. So if your first name is Courtney and your second name is Aberthica, which you would like to been secret, in Norway everyone would call you Courtney Aberthica whether you like it or not. Middle names can never be secret in Norway.