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Utgåva 41, Oktober 1994, Bo Åkermark, Stockholm

Invented Names

…”In my circle of tea-drinking students at Hötorget in the 1950s, there was a troubled Andersson. He was to marry a Miss Grill and could rightly expect pursed lips from his future in-laws, one of the country’s most proud of lineage (coat of arms from Augsburg 1571, owned trading houses at Stortorget in Stockholm as well as the ironworks of Österby, Iggesund and Söderfors, and founded the East India Company). He realised he must change his name.

It ought preferably to be a name that ‘sounded noble’, not a Stigemyr or Bjurefjong or Hägerbåge. Or at least sound like a solid upper-middle-class surname.

Swedish naming customs are good. Most names that don’t end in -son are compound: Two parts of rather simple, comprehensible words from the dictionary. The first can be varied endlessly, but the second consists of certain standard words, such as -berg, -borg, -gren, -mark, -qvist, -stedt, -strand…

Andersson began by extracting from the telephone directory as many ending elements as he could find. And then we grilled him: Raised in Gudhem in Västergötland, between Skara and Falköping, near Lake Hornborga.

He struck out ‘Gud’ but added to the list: Hem-, West-, Wester-, Göt-, Land-, Skar-, Fahl-, Horn-, Borg-, Sjö-….

It was more than enough, and Andersson set off with two small slips of paper in hand to the patent office to check if any of the combinations were available for application.

Several were. So on 28 April 1956, we attended a wedding outside Motala at Godegård, which had been inherited in the Grill family since 1775. There, the newly minted Hornstrand was wed to Miss Grill.

Incredible that such a good name could have remained available! Who would be surprised to find a Hornstrand as mayor or councillor in Stockholm in the 18th century?

And it was a profitable investment. The young couple from 1956 are still married today, albeit in their 60s.”…