ABOUT – BRAND
How Nilsson from Bäretofta became Bertoft.
If it wasn’t for my father's parents Hjalmar and Rut's sense for branding, this website would have been named nilsson.com.
The surroundings at Bäretofta Farm (even called Bärtofta) in southern Sweden seems to have been the inspiration for their branding endeavor.
The farm was built already in 1784, but it wasn't until the summer of 1922 that my grandparents sent a name application to his Majesty the King Gustaf V of Sweden. I regret that I never asked them more about the story of why they wanted to secure the idea of a new family domain. Anyway, a few months later the name change issue was fixed, and the proof came back in a letter with stamps and honorable signatures.
The main building at
Bärtofta Farm, portrayed on a postcard at the time.
The letter approving our new family name Bertoft. Signed by the Swedish King at Stockholm's Castle November 9, 1922.
What my grandparents didn't know was that some ninety years later the new name would be part of a hype called "personal branding". Little could they know that it also would appear on something called Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
I guess they did anticipate that Bertoft would be easier to keep unique than Nilsson. But how could they anticipate that the World Wide Web and Google wouldn't like the two dots in the Swedish letter "ä"? They couldn't. So, what made them change it to an "e"?
Nobody knows. But I sincerely thank them for it.