🇸🇪 Baby Naming Rules in Sweden
Sweden rewrote its naming law in 2016 and made it markedly more permissive. Parents have three months, the tax agency decides, and a refusal can be appealed.
- Legal basis
- Lag (2016:1013) om personnamn, in force since 1 July 2017
- Authority
- Skatteverket, the Swedish Tax Agency
- Deadline
- Three months from birth
- How many names
- At least one first name and one surname are required
- Sex of the name
- Not required
- Approved list
- None
The 2016 act
Naming in Sweden is governed by the Personal Names Act of 2016, which the Riksdag passed in November 2016 and which came into force on 1 July 2017. It moved responsibility for names to Skatteverket, the tax agency, which also maintains the population register and publishes the naming statistics this site draws on.
Every child must have at least one first name and one surname. Parents receive a form by post and return it to Skatteverket.
Three months, then a fine
The application has to reach Skatteverket within three months of the birth. Miss it and the agency sends reminders. If an application still does not arrive, a charge known as a vite can follow.
Standard names are approved as a matter of course. Anything unusual is examined against the statutory criteria.
When a name is refused
A first name is not approved if it can cause offence, if it can be assumed to cause discomfort for the person who bears it, or if it is for some other reason unsuitable as a first name.
A refusal comes as a written decision setting out the reasons, and it can be appealed. That appeal route is why Swedish naming disputes are unusually well documented compared with countries where the registrar's word is effectively final.
What the 2016 act changed
The act replaced the namnlag of 1982, and the government's stated aim was a modern set of rules built on simplicity, predictability and freedom of choice.
The most visible change concerns surnames rather than first names. The mellannamn, the middle name that sat between the first name and the surname, can no longer be acquired. It had been a long-standing source of confusion about what it was and how it could be used. What took its place is the double surname, where the holder decides the order of the two names and whether they are joined by a hyphen.
The act also ended automatic acquisition of a surname through birth or adoption. Surnames are now acquired by application, which is part of why the naming form arrives in the post and why the three-month deadline exists at all.
Sources
Every statement on this page is taken from an official or judicial source. The links below go to the originals so you can check them yourself.
Last reviewed: August 2026. This page explains the rules in general terms and is not legal advice. Where a decision matters to you, ask the authority that will register the name.