Boy · Old Norse
Sven
Say it: SVEN
Meaning
From Old Norse sveinn 'boy, young man, servant'.
Certainscholars agree on this meaning.
Frequent on runestones and borne by Danish kings, and common in Sweden ever since.
Its wave through time
Popular now
In the United States
- 2,282 babies given this name since 1911
- At its height in 2020, about 1 in 32,200 boys
- 53 babies in 2020
Through the ages
- The Viking and Anglo-Saxon Age700 to 1100
- The High and Late Middle Ages1100 to 1450
- The Renaissance1400 to 1600
- Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
- The Modern Age1880 to today
Used by
The family of the name
| Danish | Svend |
|---|---|
| Norwegian | Svein |
| Icelandic | Sveinn |
| English | Sweyn |
Famous bearers
- Sweyn Forkbeard, king of Denmark and England
- Sven Hedin, Swedish explorer
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Viking Age runestone inscriptions
- Royal and noble genealogies
- National birth statistics of European countries source
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.