Swedish News:

Zlatan eighth richest. Anna and Lars most common names. Passports on the loose. The world's most expensive stamp. 

  • Most common name in Sweden today is Lars, as in artist Lars ”Lasse” Åberg above ...
  • Zlatan eighth richest
    Swedish soccer player Zlatan Ibrahimovic is the eighth richest soccer player in the world, with a fortune of over 648 million SEK ($101 million). The richest soccer player is Cristiano Ronaldo from Portugal with close to 1.4 billion SEK ($219 million). It is the soccer site goal.com that has put together the list with the world’s richest players. The top ten looks like this:
    1. Cristiano Ronaldo
    2. Lionel Messi
    3. Samuel Eto’o
    4. Wayne Rooney
    5. Kaka
    6. Neymar
    7. Ronahldinho
    8. Zlatan Ibrahimovic
    9. Gianluigi Buffon, and
    10. Thierry Henry.
    For more information: www.goal.com

  • ... and Anna as in Anna Ternheim, the Swedish singer-songwriter. Photo: Benoît Derrier
  • Anna and Lars most common names
    The most common Swedish names are still Anna and Lars. Anna tops the list for as long back as statistics show, and Lars has been on top since 2001. If you factor in middle names, however, both Anna and Lars slip to third place, and Maria and Karl take the first spot, according to Statistics Sweden. Ulla, Inger, Sven and Hans left the top ten list during the past 15 years, while Emma, Sara, Peter and Thomas have entered it. Among surnames, Andersson is the most common, followed by Johansson. Two new surnames entered the top 100 list last year: Ali and Mohamed in 81st and 83rd place respectively.

  • Zlatan Ibrahimovic – the eighth richest soccer player in the world with a fortune worth $101 million.
  • Passports on the loose
    Over 60,000 Swedish passports were reported lost or stolen last year, according to Rikskriminalpolisen (the National Bureau of Investigation). A number that can be compared with that of 46,000 in 2008. Swedish passports have been identified as the most common in Europe among stolen passports in connection with the smuggling of migrants. The reason may have to do with the liberal Swedish legislation regarding lost passports, as you can always get a new one, even after losing it 20 times. The passports are sold to people who look like the person on the passport photo, so there’s no falsifications. To curb the abuse, the National Bureau of Investigation has proposed that the fee for getting a new passport be raised from 350 SEK ($55) to 980 SEK ($154).

  • Swedish passports – are they too easy to get? One thing is for sure, passports from Sweden are in heavy rotation in Europe when it comes to the smuggling on migrants.
  • The world's most expensive stamp
    The world’s most expensive stamp, the yellow three shilling banco (or 'Gul tre skilling banco' in original Swedish) is after several years abroad, back in Swedish hands. According to Dagens Industri, the precious stamp was bought by financier Gustaf Douglas for an unknown sum last year. The latest price information comes from 1998, when the stamp was sold for 15 million SEK ($2.3 million) in Copenhagen. For Nordstjernan’s previous stories on the world’s most expensive stamp:
    http://www.nordstjernan.com/news/sweden/5618/
    http://www.nordstjernan.com/news/nordic/2310/

  • Did you know that the world’s most expensive stamp is Swedish? It is called yellow three shilling banco or ”gul tre skilling banco”, and after having been abroad for awhile, the stamp is now supposedly back in Swedish hands!
  • The photo that went viral shows how important ecological bananas have become in Sweden following a test last year that showed residues of pesticides in regular bananas. The sign reads: "Sprayed ugly bananas. Lack of both Krav and Eco. To be kept away from children". A Krav label in Sweden means the product has been produced or grown in a sound natural environment, and by people with a social responsibility. Eko means ecological, that is no pesticides.