Diane Swanson: Hello, my name is Diane Swanson. Swanson is my married name but it actually started out as Svenson. My father-in-law was born in Sweden at a time when it was accustomed for a boy to choose his own last name. He could either take his father's last name, or add son to his father's first name to make a new last name. My father-in-law choose to make his name Svenson because he was the son of Sven, but when he came to Canada, English speaking people had trouble spelling Svenson so it gradually became Swanson.