BABY NAME SMORGASBORD

I’ve been reading the The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series—I’m halfway through book two right now. They’re a great read, but not for the faint of heart. Any fans out there?

 

As I’ve mentioned before, I always enjoy names with an International flare. These Stieg Larsson novels are a veritable baby name smorgasbord! The books’ character lists include some great Scandinavian names that aren’t common here in the U.S. and some names that are pretty familiar. If you’re looking for some Swedish inspiration, you’ve got a range of options to choose from here.

 

Here are some of the names I thought were most interesting:

 

FEMALE CHARACTER NAMES

AGNES Mikaelsson – old-fashioned, but ready for a comeback?

AGNETA SOFIA Salander – unique and cute

ANNIKA Giannini – stylish

CAMILLA Salander – pretty and sophisticated

CECILIA Vanger – lovely

ERIKA Berger – common

HARRIET Vanger – too soon for a comeback…?

LISBETH Salander – the star of the books and the name list, too

MIA Johansson – wildly popular here in the U.S.

MONICA Figuerola – still makes me think of Friends

SONJA Modig – pretty

 

 

MALE CHARACTER NAMES

ANDERS Jonasson – sounds cool and has nickname potential

CHRISTER Malm – love it!

DAG Svensson – makes me think of Dagwood Bumstead

DIRCH Frode – I don’t think we’re ready for this one in the U.S. yet

DRAGAN Armansky – definitely makes a statement

EVERT Gullberg – cool surname name

GUNNAR Björck – sounds like a rock star

HENRIK Vanger – old-fashioned, but not ready for a comeback yet

HOLGER Palmgren – interesting

MAGGE Lundin – looks like a variation of Maggie

MIKAEL Blomkvist – cool alternative to Michael

TORSTEN Edklinth – off-beat, but I like it

 

 

Since I’m only on book two right now, I found a character list for book three on Wikipedia. Always handy for this sort of thing…

 

 

MY FAVES

What are your favorite names from my list? I really like Lisbeth. It’s related to Elizabeth – one of my all-time favorite names because it’s versatile and has so many variations, like Lisbeth. On the boy’s side, I like Christer. It reminds me of Christopher, but with a decidedly more fashion-forward appeal. You can also go with Chris as a nickname. Like I said, I’m partial to versatile names.

 

Which do you think would go over better today – Agnes or Agneta?

 

 

READ THE BOOKS

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl Who Played with Fire

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

 

 

YOUR FAVES

What do you think of these Swedish names? You can email me or leave a comment. When you leave your first comment, you’ll need to take a couple seconds to “register.” It’s a way to prevent spammers from clogging up comment sections with off-topic advertisements. Once you do register though, you won’t have to worry about it again and can leave all the comments you want.

 

 

Happy naming,

♥  Amanda

 

 

WANT MORE BABY NAME INFO?

♥Join the free BABY NAMES MADE EASY newsletter list for the latest baby name news and tips from my website

♥Subscribe to the RSS feed so you don’t miss any future baby name posts

 

 

GET YOUR OWN COPY OF BABY NAMES MADE EASY

Amazon

Kindle

Barnes & Noble

Borders

Indie Bound

 

 

HAVE BABY NAME QUESTIONS?

If you have baby name questions, email me at amanda@amandabarden.com.

Your question might appear in a future edition of Ask Amanda.

 

 

DO YOU TWEET?

Follow me on TWITTER to get up-to-the-minute celebrity baby name news, interesting names I come across and so much more! I’m @babynameauthor!

 

 

For more information on baby names and their meanings get your copy of

BABY NAMES MADE EASY: THE COMPLETE REVERSE-DICTIONARY OF BABY NAMES