Monday, January 28, 2008

Coincidence ???


So I was browsing a bookstore, and I found this book, Svarens Bok.  I was curious what my last name meant in Swedish, so I asked the young man what this meant and he told me, "The Book of Answers."  I have no idea what "har du fagor, har finns svaren" means, but my best guess is something like, Do you have a question?  We have an answer.

It is funny that my last name means "The Answer."  Someone may have told me that before, but I really don't know.  It is also funny because when  was younger I always thought I had all of the answers.  However, I know that I don't have all the answers.  In fact, I wish I could read Swedish, then I could have picked this book up to get them.

2 comments:

Dad said...

The name was originally spelled "Sværen" meaning "the Wide Place", which was the name of the farm in "the Wide Fjord" (Sværefjorden). When Johannes Trond Sværen, your great grandfather, immigrated to the US in 1900, he changed his name to a more common English spelling and became John T. Svaren. The altered spelling in both Norwegian and Swedish means "The answer". Weird, huh?

Anonymous said...

My last name is Svarens aswell, Swedish background, not exactly a common surname, kinda creepy if we were all related hahaha

Also interesting to actually find out what my surname means, never really looked into it....