Börje


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.

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 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