Nordic and Scandinavian people in the United Kingdom refers to people from the Nordic countries who settled in the United Kingdom, their descendants, history and culture. There has been exchange of populations between Scandinavia and Great Britain at different periods over the past 1,400 years. Over the last couple of centuries, there has been regular migration from Scandinavia to Great Britain, from families looking to settle, businesspeople, academics to migrant workers, particularly those in the oil industry.[ citation needed ]
A study into the Scandinavian ancestry of British peoples found that there is evidence of particular concentrations in the Isle of Man, Shetland and Orkney; and to a lesser degree, in the Western Isles of Scotland and in the Wirral, West Lancashire, Cumbria and Yorkshire in England. [1] [2] [3] [4]
The 2001 UK Census recorded 22,525 people born in Sweden, 18,695 in Denmark, 13,798 in Norway, 11,322 in Finland and 1,552 in Iceland. [5]
In more recent estimates by the Office for National Statistics, Sweden was the only Scandinavian country to feature in the top 60 foreign countries of birth of UK residents in 2013, with an estimated 27,000 people. [6]
This section needs additional citations for verification .(July 2015) |
The table below includes Britons with significant recent Nordic ancestry.
Name | Image | Ancestry | Occupation and notes |
---|---|---|---|
Jacob Aagaard | Denmark | Danish-born Scottish chess grandmaster | |
Alicia Agneson | Sweden | Actress who moved to London at age 15 | |
Damon Albarn | Denmark | English-Icelandic musician, singer and songwriter of Danish descent through his mother. | |
Alexandra of Denmark | Denmark | Queen of the United Kingdom, consort of Edward VII, King of the United Kingdom and Emperor of India | |
Sir Ove Arup | Denmark | British engineer, founder of Arup | |
Richard Ayoade | Norway | British comedian and actor with a Norwegian mother. | |
Svend Bayer | Denmark | Potter | |
Elynor and Zoe Bäckstedt | Sweden | Welsh racing cyclists, daughters of Swedish racing cyclist Magnus Bäckstedt | |
Antonia Bernath | Norway | Actress | |
Tom Blomqvist | Sweden | Racing driver, son of Swedish rally driver Stig Blomqvist | |
MyAnna Buring | Sweden | actress | |
W. D. Caröe | Denmark | Architect | |
Georgina Castle | Sweden | Actress | |
Roald Dahl | Norway | Author | |
Sophie Dahl | Norway | Fashion model and granddaughter of Roald Dahl | |
Camilla Dallerup | Denmark | Ballroom dancer, a former professional on BBC One's Strictly Come Dancing | |
Sandra Dickinson | Finland | actress | |
Britt Ekland | Sweden | Actress and Bond Girl | |
Johan Eliasch | Sweden | UK-based businessman, chairman & CEO of sporting goods manufacturer Head and deputy treasurer of the Conservative Party | |
Mariella Frostrup | Norway | Journalist and radio and television presenter | |
Adeline Genée | Denmark | Ballet dancer | |
Charles Hambro | Denmark | Banker and politician, part of the Hambros Banking dynasty | |
Gustav Holst | Sweden | English composer and music teacher, best known for his orchestral suite The Planets | |
Ashley Jensen | Denmark | Scottish actress | |
Ulrika Jonsson | Sweden | Television personality | |
Synnøve Karlsen | Norway | Actress | |
Jessica Kellgren-Fozard | Sweden | YouTuber | |
Jonas Kellgren | Sweden | First professor of rheumatology in the UK | |
Felix Kjellberg | Sweden | Swedish YouTuber who moved to Brighton. | |
Magnus Lund | Norway | English rugby union player | |
John Lundstram | Norway | English footballer | |
Jessica Madsen | Denmark | actress | |
Mikko Mäkelä | Finland | filmmaker | |
Magnus Magnusson | Iceland | Television presenter, notably for the BBC's Mastermind, and novelist | |
Sally Magnusson | Iceland | News presenter and daughter of Magnus Magnusson | |
Rosita Spencer-Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough | Sweden | Artist and noblewoman | |
Jan Mølby | Denmark | Former professional footballer who spent much of his career at Liverpool F.C. | |
Kirsten O'Brien | Norway | TV presenter | |
Hans Rausing | Sweden | Billionaire heir to the Tetra Pak/Tetra Laval dynasty | |
Sigrid Rausing | Sweden | Philanthropist and publisher | |
Toby Regbo | Norway | Actor | |
Christian Rodska | Denmark | Actor | |
Christian Salvesen | Norway | Shipowner and businessman | |
Edward Theodore Salvesen | Norway | Scottish lawyer, politician and judge | |
Peter Schmeichel | Denmark | Former Manchester United goalkeeper; his son Kasper spent his childhood in Manchester. | |
Sofia Sjöborg | Sweden | Equestrian; born and raised in London and represents Sweden in international competitions. | |
Nicholas Ashley-Cooper, 12th Earl of Shaftesbury | Sweden | Peer and runner | |
Steve Simonsen | Denmark | English goalkeeper | |
Rupert Svendsen-Cook | Norway | English Formula BMW UK race car driver | |
Georgia Tennant | Finland | actress and producer | |
Sandi Toksvig | Denmark | Comedian | |
Christian Wolmar | Sweden | Journalist, author, and railway historian | |
Patrick Wymark | Finland | English actor |
Norse is a demonym for Norsemen, a Medieval North Germanic ethnolinguistic group ancestral to modern Scandinavians, defined as speakers of Old Norse from about the 9th to the 13th centuries.
Scandinavia is a subregion of Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. Scandinavia most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also refer to the Scandinavian Peninsula. In English usage, Scandinavia is sometimes used as a synonym for Nordic countries. Iceland and the Faroe Islands are sometimes included in Scandinavia for their ethnolinguistic relations with Sweden, Norway and Denmark. While Finland differs from other Nordic countries in this respect, some authors call it Scandinavian due to its economic and cultural similarities.
The Viking Age was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their homeland of Scandinavia but also to any place significantly settled by Scandinavians during the period. The Scandinavians of the Viking Age are often referred to as Vikings as well as Norsemen, although few of them were Vikings in the sense of being engaged in piracy.
Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia, who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe. They also voyaged as far as the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East, Greenland, and Vinland. In their countries of origin, and some of the countries they raided and settled in, this period is popularly known as the Viking Age, and the term "Viking" also commonly includes the inhabitants of the Scandinavian homelands as a whole. The Vikings had a profound impact on the early medieval history of Scandinavia, the British Isles, France, Estonia, and Kievan Rus'.
Norwegians are an ethnic group and nation native to Norway, where they form the vast majority of the population. They share a common culture and speak the Norwegian language. Norwegians are descended from the Norse of the Early Middle Ages who formed a unified Kingdom of Norway in the 9th century. During the Viking Age, Norwegians and other Norse peoples conquered, settled and ruled parts of the British Isles, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland. Norwegians are closely related to other descendants of the Norsemen such as Danes, Swedes, Icelanders and the Faroe Islanders, as well as groups such as the Scots whose nation they significantly settled and left a lasting impact in, particularly the Northern Isles.
Nordic and Scandinavian Americans are Americans of Scandinavian and/or Nordic ancestry, including Danish Americans, Faroese Americans, Finnish Americans, Greenlandic Americans, Icelandic Americans, Norwegian Americans, and Swedish Americans. Also included are persons who reported 'Scandinavian' ancestry on their census. According to 2021 census estimates, there are approximately 9,365,489 people of Scandinavian ancestry in the United States.
Magnús Jónsson was Jarl of Orkney (covering the whole of Norðreyjar Which includes not only the Orkney Islands, but the Shetland Islands c. post {Hjaltland} 1300–1321.
Orcadians, also known as Orkneymen, are an ethnic group native to the Orkney Islands, who speak an Orcadian dialect of the Scots language, a West Germanic language, and share a common history, culture and ancestry. Speaking Norn, a native North Germanic language into the 19th or 20th century, Orcadians descend significantly from North Germanic peoples, with around a third of their ancestry derived from Scandinavia, including a majority of their patrilineal line. According to anthropological study, the Orcadian ethnic composition is similar to that of Icelandic people; a comparable islander ethnicity of North Germanic origin.
The historical immigration to Great Britain concerns the movement of people, cultural and ethnic groups to the British Isles before Irish independence in 1922. Immigration after Irish independence is dealt with by the article Immigration to the United Kingdom since Irish independence.
Haplogroup I-M253, also known as I1, is a Y chromosome haplogroup. The genetic markers confirmed as identifying I-M253 are the SNPs M253,M307.2/P203.2, M450/S109, P30, P40, L64, L75, L80, L81, L118, L121/S62, L123, L124/S64, L125/S65, L157.1, L186, and L187. It is a primary branch of Haplogroup I-M170 (I*).
The genetic history of the British Isles is the subject of research within the larger field of human population genetics. It has developed in parallel with DNA testing technologies capable of identifying genetic similarities and differences between both modern and ancient populations. The conclusions of population genetics regarding the British Isles in turn draw upon and contribute to the larger field of understanding the history of the human occupation of the area, complementing work in linguistics, archaeology, history and genealogy.
Blood of the Vikings was a five-part 2001 BBC Television documentary series that traced the legacy of the Vikings in the British Isles through a genetics survey.
Viking expansion was the historical movement which led Norse explorers, traders and warriors, the latter known in modern scholarship as Vikings, to sail most of the North Atlantic, reaching south as far as North Africa and east as far as Russia, and through the Mediterranean as far as Constantinople and the Middle East, acting as looters, traders, colonists and mercenaries. To the west, Vikings under Leif Erikson, the heir to Erik the Red, reached North America and set up a short-lived settlement in present-day L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, Canada. Longer lasting and more established Norse settlements were formed in Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Russia, Ukraine, Great Britain, Ireland, Normandy and Sicily.
Norway–United Kingdom relations are foreign relations between Norway and the United Kingdom. The two nations have enjoyed very close cultural, economic, military and political cooperation since Norwegian independence in 1905. Both countries are central allies in NATO, and also have many bilateral agreements involving trade and military ties. Recently, the two have collaborated extensively to provide intelligence and arms to Ukraine during Russia's invasion of that country in 2022.
Swedes in the United Kingdom or British Swedes are immigrants from Sweden living in the United Kingdom as well as their British-born descendants. Although only around 38,000 Swedish-born people live in the UK, millions of Britons have some degree of Scandinavian ancestry that dates back over 1,000 years to the Viking invasion of Great Britain. The Swedish community in the UK is amongst the largest in the Swedish diaspora; in 2001 only the United States, Norway and Finland within the OECD had larger Swedish-born populations.
The History of Shetland concerns the subarctic archipelago of Shetland in Scotland. The early history of the islands is dominated by the influence of the Vikings. From the 14th century, it was incorporated into the Kingdom of Scotland, and later into the United Kingdom.
Scandinavian Scotland was the period from the 8th to the 15th centuries during which Vikings and Norse settlers, mainly Norwegians and to a lesser extent other Scandinavians, and their descendants colonised parts of what is now the periphery of modern Scotland. Viking influence in the area commenced in the late 8th century, and hostility between the Scandinavian earls of Orkney and the emerging thalassocracy of the Kingdom of the Isles, the rulers of Ireland, Dál Riata and Alba, and intervention by the crown of Norway were recurring themes.
North Germanic peoples, Nordic peoples and in a medieval context Norsemen, were a Germanic linguistic group originating from the Scandinavian Peninsula. They are identified by their cultural similarities, common ancestry and common use of the Proto-Norse language from around 200 AD, a language that around 800 AD became the Old Norse language, which in turn later became the North Germanic languages of today.
The term Norwegian Realm and Old Kingdom of Norway refer to the Kingdom of Norway's peak of power at the 13th century after a long period of civil war before 1240. The kingdom was a loosely unified nation including the territory of modern-day Norway, modern-day Swedish territory of Jämtland, Herjedalen, Ranrike (Bohuslän) and Idre and Särna, as well as Norway's overseas possessions which had been settled by Norwegian seafarers for centuries before being annexed or incorporated into the kingdom as 'tax territories'. To the North, Norway also bordered extensive tax territories on the mainland. Norway, whose expansionism starts from the very foundation of the Kingdom in 872, reached the peak of its power in the years between 1240 and 1319.
United Kingdom–Sweden relations are relations between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Kingdom of Sweden. Both countries are members of the UN, COE and NATO. Also both countries were member states of the EU. However, the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020. And United Kingdom is Observer bureau of the BEAC, CBSS and AC.