Gustaf

Historical scholarship

Passages quoted verbatim from public-domain reference works. They reflect the scholarship of their time, not current consensus, and may use obsolete spellings.

• 1884From the archives

  GUSTAF— “Goth’s staff”

  The most noted of all is, however, Gotzstaf, or Gozstaf, meaning either the divine staff, or the staff of the Goths. Twice has it been endeared to the Swedes; first by Gustaf Vasa, the brave man who delivered the country from the bondage of the union of Calmar, and whose adventures in Dalecarlia, like those of Bruce in Scotland, were more endearing than even his success. Him the country calls affectionately “_Gamle Kong Gosta_” and no less was its love and pride in his noble…

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  The most noted of all is, however, Gotzstaf, or Gozstaf, meaning either the divine staff, or the staff of the Goths. Twice has it been endeared to the Swedes; first by Gustaf Vasa, the brave man who delivered the country from the bondage of the union of Calmar, and whose adventures in Dalecarlia, like those of Bruce in Scotland, were more endearing than even his success. Him the country calls affectionately “_Gamle Kong Gosta_” and no less was its love and pride in his noble descendant, Gustaf Adolf, “the Lion of the North, the bulwark of the Protestant faith,” who casts the only gleam of brightness over the dull waste of the Thirty Years' War. Thus it is no wonder that so many bear his name, Gustav, Gosta, Gjosta, that it is considered in the North as the national nickname of a Swede; and it has the feminine Gustava.

  Yonge, History of Christian Names (1884), Part VI, Chapter II (Names From Teuton Mythology), Section I (Guth) · Public domain (Project Gutenberg)