Swedish Baby Names

Swedish names have a clean, bright quality, with open vowels and gentle endings that make them easy to pronounce in English. Linnea is a lovely example of Sweden's scientific history: it comes from the twinflower that was named for the botanist Linnaeus. Dahlia has a similar story, since the flower honors a Swedish botanist who studied under him. Annika, Elin, Malin and Malena are everyday Swedish girls' names, usually built from older Scandinavian forms of familiar classics.

For boys, Stellan and Mattias show the Swedish style well, while Oden is the Swedish spelling of the chief god of Norse mythology. Larson began as a patronymic surname, the kind Swedish families used before fixed surnames were common, when a child's second name simply meant son of his father. Gustavo is the Spanish and Portuguese form of a name borne by several Swedish kings, a reminder of how far Swedish royal names traveled.

Karolina and Kristina use the Swedish habit of writing k where English uses c, and Greta has become one of the country's best-known short forms. If you like these names, pay attention to how they sound with your surname: many end in an a or a soft n, so a surname beginning with a consonant usually gives the pair a clear break.