Hagåsen, Lennart2010-04-122010-04-122009Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress of Onomastic Sciences978-1-55014-521-2http://hdl.handle.net/10315/3981I intend to demonstrate that the Swedish surname system is characterized by certain morphophonotactic restrictions, including a reluctance to use rhyme and alliteration in dithematic surnames, as for example in the following, actually existing names: 'Aldal' (Al- + -dal), 'Engren' (En- + -gren) and 'Backberg' (Back- + -berg), 'Stenstedt' (Sten- + -stedt). Restrictions of the latter type apply in cases of perfect alliteration. Combinations of elements with imperfect alliteration, on the other hand, such as 'Karlkvist' (Karl- + -kvist) and 'Spångstedt' (Spång- + -stedt), are not avoided. As for double first names in Swedish, it appears that many alliterating formations either have not been used, e.g., '*Alf-Anders', '*Bengt-Börje', or have few bearers, 'Hans-Håkan', 'Lars-Lennart' etc., all of these examples being men’s names. Rhyme is not found in this category of men’s names, as in the relevant names the accent always falls on the first syllable of the last element. In women’s double names, which have a different accentuation, both alliteration '*Hanna-Helen', '*Maj-Märta', and rhyme, '*Ella-Bella', '*Maria-Sofia', are avoided. Identical restrictions in the Old Germanic name system are also discussed in this study.enThe following articles are © 2009 with the individual authors. They are made available free of charge from this page as a service to the community under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivative Works license version 3.0. For full details go to http://creativecommons.org.licenses/ny-nd.3.0Swedish Personal NamesSwedish System of Personal NamesArticle