Herkunft & Geschichte

Patronymic surname meaning 'son of Sven', from the Old Norse 'Sveinn', meaning 'young man', 'boy', or 'attendant' — a term that also carried connotations of a warrior's page or retainer. Sven was a royal name in medieval Scandinavia; the Danish king Sweyn Forkbeard conquered England in 1013. In Sweden, Sven was widely used across all social classes, and the expression 'Svenson i Sverige' (Svensson in Sweden) functions as an equivalent to 'John Smith' in English — an archetype of the ordinary Swede. The name is heavily concentrated in the southernmost province of Skane.