Decipher some old handwriting

April 20, 2020 8:26 AM

I'm trying to decipher a name on some old records (I can read the father's name OK, it's the mother's name I am having trouble with. The name appears here, and is a bit clearer here. (some more clues/details inside)

I can read the father's name no problem.


The mother's name looks like it says:

Charston (is that a name?) Larsson.

Then underneath:

M.S. (maiden surname) Sivanson(?)

Also, the records are from around 1904.

The names are likely to be Swedish, but the records are from the UK. Is it possible the registrar might have not been accustomed to foreign names, so was perhaps spelling them wrong?

Many thanks!

posted by iamsuper to Writing & Language (9 answers total)

M. S. Swanson
posted by Glomar response at 8:32 AM on April 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

Her name reads as Charston to me as well. I would read her maiden name as Swanson.
posted by Wilbefort at 8:33 AM on April 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

Could Charston be a version of Christin / Kristin? According to Wikipedia, Christin is a Swedish female given name.
posted by Martha My Dear Prudence at 9:04 AM on April 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

I read it as:

Charston Larsson.

Then underneath:

M.S. Swanson

About the first name, I think "Charston" is a version of Charsten/Karsten/Kristen.
posted by gudrun at 9:11 AM on April 20, 2020 [3 favorites]

It's likely that her maiden name was Svensson – one of the most common surnames in Sweden – and mispelled by the registrar.
posted by cincinnatus c at 9:51 AM on April 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

It could also be some version of Kirsten or Kiersten. The only Karsten I know is male. Coincidentally, his last name is Larsen.
posted by mareli at 10:01 AM on April 20, 2020

Charston is the name for a rocky outcrop in Wales, it is of that origin as a name. Charston might have married into the Larssons, having another surname. Could have been Sevanson, a child, traveling with them, maybe a first child of the woman, who subsequently married Larsson.
posted by Oyéah at 11:08 AM on April 20, 2020

Kerstin would be pronounced in Swedish with a fairly soft Ch sound at the beginning, so I guess it could be a kind of phonetic rendering of that.
posted by bluebird at 2:50 AM on April 21, 2020 [2 favorites]

I would agree with bluebird that a phonetic misspelling of a very common name is the likeliest explanation here:
Kerstin is common in Sweden (other variants mentioned - like Kirsten, Kiersten, Kristin - seem more typically Danish to me), and it would be pronounced like Chershteen, so what would you make of it sitting there with your pen poised and maybe little time or patience...

And I agree, assuming a certain (typical) pronunciation of Svensson, it would become Swanson to the ears of a non-Swede.
posted by Namlit at 11:11 PM on April 22, 2020 [1 favorite]