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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DDonde · 31-35, M

What's a common Norwegian name?

NorthernRoses · 26-30, 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).