In Scandinavia, where the use of fixed surnames did not supersede patronymics until about the 18th century[1], one family is known to have taken its name from the town of Hille, near Gavle, In Sweden. In Swedish Hille refers to the Sword and/or Halberd carried by a soldier in battle.
Hyll was rarely found as part of any surname in Scandinavia or Germany.
It is also necessary to note that the Finnish language has few affinities with the other Scandinavian languages – Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, but is more closely related to Hungarian[2]. The significant differences noted between the Hillman variants noted in Scandinavian countries could arise from this.
It is difficult at this juncture to postulate a unique Scandinavian origin for the name Hillman and variants in other parts of Europe, but there could well have been some migration of the name from Scandinavia.
3.2.1 Finland
The name Illman in Finland occurs four times more frequently than Hillman. Tuomas Salste[3] records 70 people in Finland in 2016 with the name Hillman, compared with 289 people in 2017 with the name Illman. As such its origins as a name would be of great interest in trying to determine where this name – or these names – stem from.
Salste3 records that the name Hellman exists with around 1,500 people today, so five times more common than Illman, and 20 times more common than Hillman. He also records three places in Finland called Hellman which are an island and two settlements. He concludes that the name Hellman is Swedish in origin. There are 3,678 Hellmans in Sweden, 1,484 in Finland, 49 in Norway and 23 in Denmark. For comparison he lists only 543 Hillmans in Sweden, 74 in Finland, 11 in Denmark, and none at all in Norway.
The Geneanet website[4] lists 133 instances of the name Hillman from Finland, including three now in Sweden, over the period 1632-1984 indicating a degree of antiquity. It also lists a large number of similar-sounding surnames that could easily be forms of the same, with various combinations of the vowels, and the numbers of “l” and “n”:
- Hallman, Hallmann, Halmann,
- Hellman, Hellmann, Hellmans, Helman, Helmans,
- Hillemann, Hillermann, Hillermanns, Hillmann, Hilman, Hilmann,
- Hollaman, Hollemann, Holliman, Hollimon, Hollman, Hollmann, Hollyman, Holmann, Holyman,
It would appear that a great deal more research is required with Scandinavian surnames to establish the origins of these names and any linkages there might be.
Allison Kokum Bellentyne (pers. comm.), in the USA, wrote with reference to her Finnish Hillman ancestors:
“According to a family history my aunt wrote, our name changed from Pehrsson to Hillman around 1797 when my ancestor Pehr Pehrsson registered his son’s birth as Juha Hillman. Juha, also known as Arvid was my great-great grandfather. Whenever I asked questions about our ancestry, my grandfather used to caution me against looking back in the family ‘because you might find horse thieves.’ From this, I later surmised that there were dark family secrets and that my great grandparents had left Finland in the early 1900’s to start a new life.”
In Finland, it is thought, but yet to be corroborated, that the use of Hillman as a surname denoted descendancy from soldiers who came from either Sweden or the British Isles.
Perrtu Hillman (pers. comm.), of Finland, provided the following observations, which again point to a military connection, and possible UK or Sweden origin for the name Hillman:
“I´m very sorry I could not tell you much about the origins of family name Hillman in Scandinavia. As a result of my ‘inquiries’ I have found out that there were soldiers with that surname in Finnish army in early 17th century (that time Finland was under regime of Sweden) and they were probably from Sweden in origin. Could be also from Britain but there is no evidence at least in my knowledge. Name Hillman is very rare in Finland which gives one reason to believe it is from e.g. British Isles.”
In contrast the same Geneanet source2 lists 825 records for Illman, and none at all for Hillmann.
3.2.2 Norway
Salste3 records no Hillmans in Norway at all, but 49 Hellmans. It is evident there are significant differences between the very low occurrence of possible Hillman variants in Norway as opposed to the other Scandinavia countries – Sweden, Finland and Denmark.
The death of Ole Hillman born in Sweden in 1866 is recorded in the USA in 1940, son of Ola and Kari Hillman in Sweden[5].
3.2.3 Sweden
Tuomas Salste3 records 543 people in Sweden in 2015 with the surname Hillman. In contrast there were only 25 with the surname Illman. This is completely the reverse in Finland as reported by the same website.
However – the LocateMyName website[6] in 2016 records only 320 instances of the name together with a distribution map, mainly in the south and especially in Gävleborg.
In the Östergöttland district of southern Sweden a survey[7] recorded all local surnames including Hillman and others that are similar (Table 1).
Table 1 Hillman and other similar names from Östergöttland, Sweden
This therefore includes all potential variants of Hillman noted elsewhere with the other vowels in place of the intial “i“, except for Hullman .
Sheila Arestad (pers. comm.), also in the USA, wrote of her Swedish Hillman ancestors:
“my ‘Hillman’ name does come from Sweden…specifically the village/town of Hille near Gavle. My great grandmother, whom I knew well, was Elvira “Vera” Hillman. She came to America in 1909 following her older brother who came in 1904. He never married and had no children, so my family is the only American branch here in the States. Vera died in 1985 at the age of 97.
“The curious thing I found when I actually did the family tree using the original sources was that the name ‘Hillman’ was only used for three or four generations in my family. As you probably know, Scandinavians are/were fond of using patrilinear names…eriksdotter, eriksson, larsdotter, larsson, etc. At some point, one of the men joined the Navy. It is confusing to have so many men with the same name serving in the armed forces, so they often took the name of their town…so Erik Eriksson became Erik Hillman, his son was known as Par Erikson Hillman (and variously on records throughout his life) and then my great great grandfather was Anders Gustaf Hillman, who became rather famous for circumnavigating the globe five times as an officer in the Royal Navy. Grama Vera and her brothers were Hillmans, but her nephews in Sweden decided to go back to the patrilinear system and called themselves ‘Ragnarsson’ after their father. They have held that name since.
“I traced the family back to 1720 in Hille, but can go no further as there don’t seem to be any more records available on microfilm. There are some lengthy, handwritten birth records dating back to the 1600s, but only one proved to be of interest to me even if it is almost illegible. It was a pretty ‘inbred’ village…found out that my great great grandparents were fourth cousins. The church in Hille was apparently founded in the 1300s though.
“In my review of the town of Hille in Sweden from 1680 to 1861 I found very few surnames. It seems that the villagers did not use them. Those surnames not attached to military service were far and few between (perhaps five) and were only attached to individuals who came from elsewhere…Stockholm for the most part.
“’Hille’ doesn’t translate into English as far as I can tell. The Swedish words for a ‘hill’ would be ‘Backe’, ‘Berg’, ‘Ho”jd’ or perhaps ‘Kulle’. ‘Hillman’ for a Swede just means ‘man from Hille’. All of my Hillmans were in the Swedish navy. One thing I found is that ‘Hille’ is a prefix to the Swedish word for a ‘Halberd’…just as in German.”
Barbara Ann Hillman Jones, Jamestown, USA, gives an example of Hellman being changed to Hillman on arrival in USA[8].
She records of her Swedish grandfather:
“Klaes Hellman ……….. immigrated to the USA in 1900, aged 19. On arrival and discovering that the word ‘hell’ had bad connotations, he changed his surname to Hillman”
The following surnames occur in modern Sweden as evident from records5 of surnames in different districts there: Hillman, Hyllman, and similar Hallman, Hellman, Hollman, Hållman, Hiltman. This therefore includes all potential variants of Hillman noted elsewhere with the other vowels in place of the intial ”i”, excepting Hullman.
At least 15 businesses including the name Hillman can be found in Swedish directories[9] in e.g. Stockholm – Agneta Hillman – Health & Medical, John Alexander Hillman in Jonkoping – Transport.
3.2.4 Denmark
Tuomas Salste3 records only 11 people in Denmark in 2016 with the surname Hillman.
One of these is Hanne Leth Hillman, a business woman in Copenhagen[10].
On the Geni website[11] Ellen Ihlemann records the family of Christian Justus Carl Ihlemann, born in 1868 in Fredriksberg. His three sons were apparently recorded as Ihlemann/Hillman, suggesting another route through which the name Hillman has evolved. His daughters were recorded only as Ihlemann.
Sources:
[1] https://thegenegenieblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/09/surnames-origins-and-meanings-part-2-scandinavia/
[2] https://histdoc.net/sounds/hungary.html
[3] http://www.tuomas.salste.net/suku/nimi/illman.html
[4] https://en.geneanet.org/fonds/individus/
[5] https://www.geni.com/search?search_type=people&names=Ole+Hillman
[6] http://www.locatemyname.com/sweden/Hillman
[7] http://www.genealogi.net/listor/bouppteckningar/bou_namn_h.htm
[8] https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MaWOAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT97&lpg=PT97&dq=Hillman+surname+in+sweden&source=bl&ots=EtXoSuOrhp&sig=O8XBebfBqdCvd4vrImLIn5xYyi8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiG6v_Op9HMAhVLlxoKHbefDbcQ6AEISzAH#v=onepage&q=Hillman%20surname%20in%20sweden&f=false
[9] https://www.hitta.se/s%C3%B6k?vad=Hillman&typ=ftg&sida=1&changedTab=1
[10] LinkedIn listings
[11] https://www.geni.com/people/christian-justus-ihlemann/6000000011381379355