Personal Names on Swedish Viking Age Runestones

Abstract

This dissertation examines the naming methods on Late Viking Age Swedish runestones. It is well-known in the runological world that the runestones of the Late Viking Age preserve a plethora of personal names. At the same time, name scholars have long observed that the older Germanic naming strategies of alliteration and the variation system used before the Viking Age had been completely replaced by the repetition of whole names by the Late Middle Ages. Since most Late Viking Age runestones mention the names of related persons and their familial relationship, they provide an excellent corpus for evaluating naming strategies used from the late 10th- to early 12th century.

A total of 1824 of the most usable Viking Age inscriptions from the Runic Swedish area were gathered and entered into a custom database to allow all relationships of a certain type to be viewed at once (i.e. fathers and their children, mothers and their children, siblings, grandparents, etc.). With this information, each relationship type was evaluated for use of alliteration, variation, and repetition as naming strategies. The analysis compares the naming methods used on stones from the earlier part of the period (980–1050) with the later part of the period (1050–1130) to discern chronological trends. The results are explored in the context of Christian runestones and also compared with naming methods in relevant literary sources. Finally, the findings are discussed within a broader social context contributing to changes in naming methods in Late Viking Age Sweden focusing on Christianization, runic literacy, social status, and trade and foreign contact. The appendices include a full list of the results of each naming method and family trees constructed from multiple related inscriptions which yielded additional family relationships.