Gustav History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

Origins Available:
Sweden

Etymology of Gustav

What does the name Gustav mean?

The origin of the distinguished Gustav family can be traced to the historic Scandinavian country of Sweden. The surname Gustav is derived from the Old Norse personal name Gustav. This name is composed of the tribal name Gaut and the word staf, which means staff or cudgel. The tribal name is thought by experts to be identical with that of the Geats, the Scandinavian tribe to which Beowulf belonged, and it is also thought to be akin to that of the Goths. Thus, the name Gustav literally means staff of the Geats or staff of the Goths. The suffix -sen and its variants are translatable as son of.

Gustav migration to the United States +

Some of the first settlers of this family name were:

Gustav Settlers in United States in the 18th Century

Carl Gustav, who landed in Pennsylvania in 1750 1

Gustav migration to New Zealand +

Emigration to New Zealand followed in the footsteps of the European explorers, such as Captain Cook (1769-70): first came sealers, whalers, missionaries, and traders. By 1838, the British New Zealand Company had begun buying land from the Maori tribes, and selling it to settlers, and, after the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, many British families set out on the arduous six month journey from Britain to Aotearoa to start a new life. Early immigrants include:

Gustav Settlers in New Zealand in the 19th Century

Fritz Gustav, aged 22, a labourer, who arrived in Wellington, New Zealand aboard the ship "Terpsichore" in 1876

Contemporary Notables of the name Gustav (post 1700) +

King Karl X Gustav (1622-1660), king of Sweden
Carl Gustav Fleischer KCB (1883-1942), Norwegian general
Werner Gustav Schulz (1950-2022), German politician of Alliance '90/The Greens, member of the German Bundestag from 1990 to 2005, and a member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2009 to 2014
Antun Gustav MatoÅ¡ (1873-1914), Croatian poet and writer
Heinrich Gustav Magnus (1802-1870), German experimental scientist who discovered the Magnus effect
Nils Gustav Dalén (1869-1937), Swedish engineer, Nobel Laureate and industrialist, founder of the AGA company and inventor of the AGA cooker and the Dalén light
Bo Gustav Stenson (b. 1944), Swedish jazz pianist, founder of The Bobo Stenson Trio
Edward Gustav Knoblauch (1874-1945), American-born British playwright and novelist, best remembered for his 1911 play, Kismet
Konrad Gustav Knudsen (1890-1959), Norwegian painter, journalist, and parliamentarian; he invited Leon Trotsky to seek asylum in Norway
Johann Gustav Stickel (1805-1896), German theologian, orientalist and numismatist

Historic Events for the Gustav family +

Bismarck

Hermann Gustav (1919-1941), German Maschinenm. ROA Res. who served aboard the German Battleship Bismarck during World War II when it was sunk heading to France; he died in the sinking 2

Sources +

Filby, P. William, Meyer, Mary K., Passenger and immigration lists index : a guide to published arrival records of about 500,000 passengers who came to the United States and Canada in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. 1982-1985 Cumulated Supplements in Four Volumes Detroit, Mich. : Gale Research Co., 1985, Print (ISBN 0-8103-1795-8)
Bismarck & Tirpitz Class - Crew List Bismarck. (Retrieved 2018, February 06). Retrieved from https://www.bismarck-class.dk/bismarck/crew/bismarck_crew.html#crew_details