Question

In Sweden, did women sometimes change their last name from "dotter" to "son?" Pehrsdotter became Person.

Comments

Yes.  My mother who was the daughter of Carl Svensson had the name Augusta Carlsson at the time of her marriage in 1920.

R. Loov

Answer 1

The period from, say, 1850 to 1920 was simply a mess.

It is not unusual to see a woman move out from her parents as Andersdotter, then be registered as Andersson later on and towards the end of her life have Johansson as a married name.

In the patronymic system where daughters had -dotter names and sons had -sson names women did not have a married name. When a woman's name was converted from -dotter to -sson, that was her transit to a family name system. This usually happened before married names for women came in regular use.

It also happens that an Andersdotter moves to another parish and is registered as Andersson - and then upon a next move she is back to Andersdotter. This illustrates how much of these name registrations depended on the vicars - who were of different opinions about proper naming.

The result is a mess - but fortunately the sources are good, you can ususlly follow people all the way from birth to death.

Answer 2

When Sweden shifted from the patrynomic naming system to set surnames, some families adopted the 'son' surname of the father or head of household.  I've several ancestors (sons and daughters alike) who all took the 'son' name of the father and then the following generations all used the same surname.

Answer 3

It depends on the period you are looking at. Family names became permanent in 1920 but were sometimes used prior. You might find this helpful:

Naming Practices in Sweden

There was also a spelling reform which is good to keep in mind for place names. For example my great grandmother's village went from Grafva to Grafa.

https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gammalstavning