Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 August 20

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August 20

Swedish "-qvist"

I am looking for the etymology of the Swedish/ High Germanic suffix "-qvist/quist/kvist", e.g in the surnames "Bergqvist/ B.-quist/ B.-kvist" and "Lagerqvist". Do you know of any published or accessible Swedish/Scandinavian etymological dictionary? Thank you in advance. — Hamid Hassani (talk) 20:42, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Here's an online version of a 1922 Swedish Etymological dictionary. Fribbler (talk) 20:54, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

This and (not reliable) this suggest it's from a word meaning "twig", so Bergvist combines mountain and twig, for example. › Mortee _talk 20:59, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you Fribbler and Mortee, again. A non-WP friend of myself referred me to this book too: A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, by Vladimir Orel, Leiden, Brill, 2003, p. 229. — Hamid Hassani (talk) 21:47, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

We do have an article Scandinavian family name etymology, which mentions as an example in the Swedish section "Berg/Bergkvist (mountain/mountain + twig)". Kvist still means twig. The other spellings (qvist, quist) look to me like the sort of thing done by socially-ambitious families. DuncanHill (talk) 22:11, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

And of course, which I had forgotten, but our article Swedish name reminded me, ornamental names such as Bergkvist were more middle-class than surnames in -sson, derived from a patronym. DuncanHill (talk) 22:18, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Struck a bit of my earlier post, of course qvist would be an older spelling, and u and v were not terribly well distinguished in Swedish for some time. Brain working a bit slow tonight! DuncanHill (talk) 22:29, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Quist is a fairly common English surname. Alansplodge (talk) 13:09, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Which makes sense, since much of England was once settled by people from Scandinavia. --Jayron32 13:56, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

"Bloody Vikings!" Alansplodge (talk) 15:59, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Very interesting, useful explanatory notes. Thank you guys. — Hamid Hassani (talk) 10:33, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

An ancestor of mine assumed a –kvist name; according to family legend, he did so because he was tired of being one of many Ole Maansson in the army. A couple of generations later, it became –quist in America. —Tamfang (talk) 18:49, 25 August 2018 (UTC)