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 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
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