{"id":6862,"date":"2015-02-10T23:33:17","date_gmt":"2015-02-10T23:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/?p=6862"},"modified":"2015-02-10T23:33:17","modified_gmt":"2015-02-10T23:33:17","slug":"what-does-that-mean-swedish-town-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/what-does-that-mean-swedish-town-names\/","title":{"rendered":"What Does That Mean? Swedish Town Names"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since you\u2019ve all been browsing IKEA\u2019s website to improve your Swedish<\/a>, you may have noticed that a lot of Swedish cities, towns, and villages have similar endings. Those endings actually mean something though. Let\u2019s take a look at ten different endings that you may find while shopping IKEA or driving through the Swedish countryside:<\/p>\n

Borg<\/em>:
\nBorg<\/em> means stronghold or even castle. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that these towns and cities were at one point home to some sort of borg<\/em>. G\u00f6teborg and Helsingborg are probably the best-known cities with the \u2013borg<\/em> ending. Fun fact, G\u00f6teborg is the only city in Sweden with a special English-language name. You might know it better as Gothenburg.<\/p>\n

By<\/em>:
\nBy<\/em> means village in Swedish (although it means city in Danish and Norwegian) and a lot of the places with the \u2013by<\/em> ending are just that\u2014villages. Osby in Sk\u00e5ne, for example, has a population just north of 7,000. Of course, there are places like Visby on the island of Gotland. Once an important Hanseatic trading city, today it is the largest town on Gotland with a population of about 22,000.<\/p>\n

Holm<\/em>:
\nYou\u2019ve heard of this one before, right? Stockholm. So what does \u2013holm<\/em> actually mean? Holme<\/em> is the word for islet\u2014a small island. Stockholm is built on a whole bunch of little islands, hence the holm<\/em> at the end there<\/p>\n

Hult<\/em>:
\nYou\u2019ll find plenty of places down in Sk\u00e5ne and Sm\u00e5land with the \u2013hult<\/em> ending. Hult<\/em> actually means forest. Head to \u00c4lghult and hope that you see the moose in the forest that gives the community its name.<\/p>\n

K\u00f6ping<\/em>:
\nJ\u00f6nk\u00f6ping, Link\u00f6ping, Norrk\u00f6ping. These are all cities with populations hovering right around 100,000 people. They are also all cities that boast the \u2013k\u00f6ping<\/em> ending. You should recognize a word in there k\u00f6pa<\/em>, to buy. K\u00f6ping<\/em> means trading center or market town. Norrk\u00f6ping is a northern trading center or northern market town. Very creative.<\/p>\n

Mora<\/em>:
\nMora <\/em>comes from the word mor<\/em>, which is the word for mother. It is also the word for moor or a swampy spruce forest and that\u2019s what towns like Dannemora and Hedemora are named after.<\/p>\n

N\u00e4s<\/em>:
\nN\u00e4s<\/em> looks like it might be referencing a nose. It might be. But n\u00e4s<\/em> is the word for isthmus or promontory. Bolln\u00e4s, for example, is a small community in H\u00e4lsingland that juts out into lake Varpen.<\/p>\n

Sala<\/em>:
\nSala<\/em> comes from the word sal<\/em>, which has (or had, at least) a couple of meanings. One was hall, as in a great hall, and the other was a small building with one room. Chances are that places like Uppsala are referencing the former, a place where a ceremonial hall may have stood.<\/p>\n

Torp<\/em>:
\nTorp<\/em> means croft. The word has undergone a few changes over the years, mostly in the size of the farm being described. Originally it described a small, independent farm, but eventually came to describe what we know as a croft\u2014a small farm that is usually worked by a tenant. For example there\u2019s Anderstorp, Perstorp, and Staffanstorp.<\/p>\n

Tr\u00e4sk<\/em>:
\nToday, this word means marsh or swamp. It\u2019s also an old word for lake, though, and especially common up in northern Sweden where you\u2019ll find places like Bastutr\u00e4sk and Kl\u00f6vertr\u00e4sk.<\/p>\n

Have you seen any of these endings in places around Sweden? If not, have you noticed any other endings that pop up again and again? Let us know in the comments.<\/p>\n

And if you want to learn more about place names, check out this wonderful post on Wikipedia (in Swedish) titled: Svenska ortnamnsefterled<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since you\u2019ve all been browsing IKEA\u2019s website to improve your Swedish, you may have noticed that a lot of Swedish cities, towns, and villages have similar endings. Those endings actually mean something though. Let\u2019s take a look at ten different endings that you may find while shopping IKEA or driving through the Swedish countryside: Borg…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3079,13],"tags":[364863,364872,34680],"class_list":["post-6862","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-swedish-language","category-vocabulary","tag-geography","tag-swedish-language","tag-swedish-vocabulary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6863,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6862\/revisions\/6863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}