Re: OT: Anthroponymics

tomhchappell skrev:

> I have read that duplication of names is so common in some Scandinavian
> country, that telephone directories routinely list occupations along
> with names, to help users know whether or not they are calling the
> correct person.
That used to be the case in all of Scandinavia IIANM.
Today it's optional at least in Sweden.

> I have also read that one such Scandinavian telephone company, used a
> computer program to combine common surname-beginnings with common
> surname-endings, to come up with new surnames that sounded reasonably,
> generically "like" existing surnames, and then offered bonuses to
> subscribers with too-common actual surnames, as an incentive to change
> their surname to one of the new ones.
AFAIK that was not a phone company, but the Swedish patent authority
acting on the instructions of the government.  It was a university
department of computational linguistics that did the actual work.

You have no idea how many Andersson (the Swedish spelling;
Andersen is Danish/Norwegian) Johansson, Svensson and Larsson
there are in Sweden!
(FYI Jonnson is comparatively uncomon, or I would have changed
my name...)

> Given my ex-wife's family's history, I do not find either of those
> factoids at all implausible; but I have no way of knowing whether or
> not either of them is true.
There is a grain of truth in it.

--

/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se

         Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
                                             (Tacitus)

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