Börje is an old Swedish male name. It is a cognate of Birger; Börje is the form that has developed naturally according to the sound change laws of Swedish, whilst Birger is a literary form that has been common since the nineteenth century, when archaic forms of names became fashionable.
Etymology
The etymology of Börje is uncertain. Probably it is a short form of names beginning with Berg-. Less likely it means "helper", from the verb bärga. It has also been suggested that it is derived from the name element -ger (spear).
Sound changes
Börje developed from Old Swedish Birghir which was pronounced with a voiced velar fricative : . The voiced velar fricative was spelled ⟨gh⟩ i Old Swedish and changed to /j/ after /r/ in modern Svenska.
Börje is an ija-stem. Ija-stems ended in -ir i Old Swedish, which regularly developed into a word final -e in modern Swedish. This explains why Börje has accent 2 today: since the synkope at the transition from Proto-Norse to Norse the name has been disyllabic, which leads to a word being pronounced with the grave accent in modern Swedish. Hence, the vowel in the second syllable of old Swedish Birghir or Birgher was no svarabhakti vowel like the -e- in modern Swedish words such as the a-stem dager, which at one stage was monosyllabic (dagr) and therefore has accent 1.
The first vowel -i- of Birghir between a b and an r changed into an -y- and then into an -ö-. The vowel was -i- labialised by the influence of the initial /b/.
The form Birger
The form Birger has been revived from the old language within the last 200 years. This "revived" form has accent 1, like an a-stem with a nominative suffix consisting of the svarabhakti-vowel -e- plus -r. Swedish names revived during romanticism commonly take a historically unjustified pronunciation.
Popularity
Börje was very common as a given name in 1930–49. Today it is almost never given as a first name that is used to address the person. In 2017 approximately 7 500 persons had the name as their first name or name of address.
Name day in Sweden: 9 June).
People with the given name Börje
- Börje Ahlstedt (born 1939), Swedish actor
- Börje Ekedahl (1928–2006), Swedish bobsledder
- Börje Ekholm (born 1963), Swedish business executive, CEO of Ericsson
- Börje Fredriksson (1937–1968), Swedish jazz tenor saxophonist
- Börje Haraldsson (born 1957), Swedish physician and researcher
- Börje Hörnlund (born 1935), Swedish politician
- Börje Jansson (born 1952), Swedish motorcycle road racer
- Börje Leander (1918–2003), Swedish footballer
- Börje Salming (1951–2022), Swedish ice hockey player
- Börje Vestlund (1960–2017), Swedish social democratic politician
- Börje-Bengt Hedblom, Swedish bobsledder
- Lars-Börje Eriksson (born 1966), Swedish Alpine skier
- Quorthon (Thomas Börje Forsberg) (1966–2004), Swedish songwriter and musician
References
- ^ Elof Hellquist, Svensk etymologisk ordbok. Lund 1922.
- ^ "Birger: Institutet för språk och folkminnen". Archived from the original on 16 June 2017. Retrieved 9 May 2017.
- ^ Elias Wessén, Svensk språkhistoria I: Ljudlära och ordböjningslära. Fourth edition. Stockholm 1955.
- Ragnvald Iversen, Norrøn grammatikk. Seventh edition, revised by Eyvind Fjeld Halvorsen. Oslo 1973.
- ^ "Sök på namn: Statistiska centralbyrån".
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