[Surname] Re: origin of swedish surname Sjosten
by Jim Young (guest)
10/7/2007, 11:47 AM
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.