Alright, so I was working on a fictional character with some friends for a college project. The character is supposed to be Swedish.
Due to certain visual motifs relating to rainy weather, I elected to name the character 'Regn Sörensen'.
But I'm always nervous when naming a character in another language, because what sounds nice to my English speaking ears might sound silly to somebody who speaks that language natively.
So I have a few questions.
1: I know the name Sörensen is most common in the neighbouring country of Denmark. Is this a big deal? I assume due to the language similarities and geographic proximity that there must be a lot of names that are common all over Scandinavia.
Am I wrong to assume that? Would a Swedish person hear the name "Sörensen" and immediately think "Oh, you must be Danish" ?
2: Assuming that yes, Sörensen is a fine name to use for a Swedish character, is it too stereotypical? Is it like calling an English character "Smith"?
Should I try and pick something a little less common?
3: I know the name "Regn" is a bit abnormal. I know that in an English speaking country, if a person's name was simply "Rain" people would think that a bit strange, since it's not a word usually thought of as a person's name, and it's a recognisable noun used in conversation all the time.
Is that also the case in Swedish? Is naming somebody "Regn" a little strange?
I thought I might be a bit more cryptic and looked up the Old Norse word for rain, since that's where Swedish evolved from, but no luck. Old Norse for rain is also "regn".