I was raised on a road named, Swedetown Road. Some of the family names on the road were, Anderson, Peterson, Ott, Vanek, Kasky and Haskew. Are those Swedish names?
Obviously the Anderson and Peterson are Swedish, and some of the others may be too. What part of the country?
My mother's family name was Longacre, and we always thought it was English. We learned a few years ago, however, that it is actually Swedish. At the time the Swedes first came here they used the patronymic (sp?) method of naming their children. In other words Lars Peterson's sons last names would be Larson, or Larsen. His daughters' last names would be Larsdotter. This changed every generation, so there was no obvious continuity. The Dutch did the same thing.
When the English kicked the Dutch out of the New World and took over New Amsterdam they passed a law that said that all the Scandinavians and Dutch had to adopt the Anglo way of naming children -- the father's last name carries on through the generations -- because the Dutch and the Swedish methods were too confusing. This was in the 1700s.
We don't know the reason; but my ancestor, who at that time was named Anders Peterson, adopted the last name of Longacre (Lonoker), instead of Peterson. He is recorded in the records variously as Andreas (Anders) P. Lonoker, Longaker, or Longacre. At the time he owned a piece of land on an island in the Schuykill River (PA) that was long and skinny -- a long acre. Either he named himself after his land, or he named himself after his brother in law who was an Englishman and owned the adjacent land -- his name being Longshore. The two parcels are marked on the old map -- Longacre and Longshore.
Reason? I figure it was because there were already too many Petersons in the community! Or, he had a great sense of humor. And it has confused multiple subsequent generations.
But if you look at the lists of the "Old Swedes" from New Sweden, you will find many names that do not sound Swedish to our present day ears. In other words, not all of the names ended in "son".
What town would I find Swedetown Road?
"....Anderson, Peterson, Ott, Vanek, Kasky and Haskew...."
Anderson is Scottish....I am descended from some Scottish Andersons. (Andersen or Andersson would be the Scandinavian spellings). Peterson, Ott, and Haskew also sound Scottish to me (Haskew is probably a variation of Eskew, which is certainly Scottish). Vanek sounds Czech to me; Kasky is probably Polish.
Most of the settlers of Alabama (indeed, most of the inland South) were "Scotch-Irish", that is, the Ulster Scots. Very few Swedes appeared in the South...there are very few even to this day.