Why is "Sven" a go-to Norwegian name in movies?

Like, Sven from the original Voltron series and Sven the reindeer from Frozen.

I get that it sounds hyper-Scandinavian and all, but very few people are named Sven in Norway. It sounds weird.

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SW-User

I don’t know any Norwegian names but if I had to guess I’d say Peter is one

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NorthernRoses · 22-25, F

@SW-User Hans [i]used[/i] to be very popular, but has fallen almost entirely out of use in Norway lol. Lots of old historical people named Hans but little to none to meet in Norway.

Hans is the name of Hansel in the Norwegian version of Hansel and Gretel, so

SW-User

@NorthernRoses Interesting. I once heard that Scandinavian languages are pretty close to each other. So can the average Norwegian understand Finnish, Danish or Swedish?

NorthernRoses · 22-25, F

@SW-User Oh yeah, we understand Danish and Swedish with little to no problem! Norwegians can also understand a lot of Icelandic as Icelandic developed from old Norwegian Norse, but it can only be understood with intense focus and multiple repeats.

We can't understand Finnish, though! Finnish has its own little language group that I think is similar to Estonian, but idk. I think they learn Swedish in school, so we can still understand each other enough for them to join the Nordic club

GlassDog · 41-45, M

I always wonder that. The only Svens I've known were Swedish, and even then Sven was only part of the name like Sven-Göran.

SW-User

Because it's an English-language stereotype Scandinavian name, like Bjorn or Brunhilde.

gmatthewb · 51-55, M

Probably because the people making these movies and tv shows have never actually been to any Scandinavian country and simply don't know any better. A lot of these shows are specifically made for people with low intelligence, so they don't really bother doing a lot of research because there is no point.

SW-User

My great grandfather's name was Olaf and his nick name was Ollie. He was from Sweden. There were no Svens in the family that I know of.

vetguy1991 · 51-55, M

It's easy for people to associate it with Scandinavia

DDonde · 31-35, M

What's a common Norwegian name?

NorthernRoses · 22-25, F

@DDonde If we look away from the ones that are just variations of general world-common names (Kristoffer/Christopher, Markus/Marcus, Jonas, etc. other biblical names)

Arne, Grim, Espen, Torgeir/Thorgeir, Torgrim/Thorgrim, Sigurd, Anders, and Balder are names I see pretty often

[i]Svein[/i] is an actual name used in Norway, so they could also use that one 🤔

DDonde · 31-35, M

@NorthernRoses I guess it's just that Sven is a recognizably Scandinavian name to Americans. If you asked us what country those names are from, I'm not sure many of us would guess Norway correctly (with the exception of maybe Sigurd and the names with "thor" in them).

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