Norwegian Baby Names

Norwegian baby names are always changing in popularity. Many of the most popular names today was also popular a hundred years ago. One example is the use of names from the Bible.

Another example is the use of old names that is reffering to bravery and beeing heroic. Take a look at Names of Braves

or take a look at the really old Nordic name traditions in Old Norse Boys Names or Old Norse Girls Names




Changing in popularity is of course an international trend. In Norway you can tell from the Top-10 list in Sweden what names will be popular in the coming years.A hundred years ago there was a tradition of making combinations of names. When Norwegian baby names was decided, the parents often choosed several names for their baby, 3, 4 or even 5 names was not unusual, like Lars Kornelius Kristoffer, or Anna Petrine Fredrikke Antoinette.

The reason for using several names was the long tradition of giving their babys names after their parents, grandparents, or even longer back in the family history.

When using many names it was also quite common that one of the names would have some royal "connection", or the names was taken from the Bible.

The last 20 years it was normal to only have one first name, but now we can see that two first names are modern.

From old tradition the wife takes her husbands last name when marrying, but now its more common to keep their maiden name. Then the babys are given two last names, that is both the mothers and the fathers last name.

The use of names is also different for different parts of Norway.In Oslo there is a lot of new inhabitants from muslim countrys, and the no.1 most used name for newborn children in Oslo in 2008 was Mohammad.

Norwegian Name Traditions

Before 1800 the normal was using one Christening name, especially in the countryside, but during the 1800's it became more normal for a person to have two or even more firstnames.

In addition to the first name, people was identified through their fathers name, like Knut Hansen. The name of this person was Hans, and the normal here would be Hansson (son of Hans), but as Danish was the only form of writing, it was usually written "-sen", Hansen.For a girl that would be Hansdatter (daughter of Hans).

During the late 1800 these names became normally i use as lastnames, and also the women got their "-sen" names.So Kari, daughter of Hans, became Kari Hansen.

Before late 1800 it was normal to have a third name for a person. This name was telling where you lived, the name of the place or village where you have settled. If you lived in a place called Eide ,your name was Knut Eide and you moved to a place called Fiksdal, then you would normally take the name Knut Fiksdal, or even local names for the part of Fiksdal where you settled.



In the towns this was more unusual, and people moving to a town would keep their last name.

Source:Ronald Toppe (toppe.org)



Almost 70% of the Norwegian population has names related to farms, and there are no other European countrys where last-names are referring to names of farms like in Norway.

(source: slekt.no)

Girls names 1900 - 1999

These are the most used first-name for girls in the periode 1900 - 1999 (name and number of persons)

1 Anne 78 200

2 Inger 44 600

3 Anna 39 800

4 Astrid 36 900

5 Kari 36 500

6 Ingrid 36 400

7 Solveig 36 200

8 Marit 35 300

9 Liv 31 700

10 Randi 28 100

Boys names 1900 - 1999

After 1980 the most popular names has been Thomas, Kristian and Martin.

However, in 2008 Thomas was not on the Top-20 list at all, while Kristian was no.5 and Martin was no.19.



These are the most used first-name for boysin the periode 1900 - 1999

1 Jan 59 800

2 Arne 58 100

3 Per 56 800

4 Ole 52 200

5 Bjørn 49 100

6 Hans 45 700

7 Knut 41 900

8 Lars 41 100

9 Kjell 39 900

10 Tor/Thor 38 400

(Source: Statistics Norway)