Herkunft & Geschichte

Patronymic surname meaning 'son of Hans', the German and Scandinavian diminutive of Johannes (John), itself from Hebrew 'Yohanan' (God is gracious). Hans arrived in Sweden through North German cultural influence during the Hanseatic period of the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, when German merchants dominated Baltic trade and settled in Swedish coastal cities. Hansson is concentrated in the southern Swedish province of Skane, which was historically part of Denmark and therefore more exposed to Low German linguistic influence than central or northern Sweden.