By Svante Strandberg
In: Ortnamnssällskapets i Uppsala årsskrift 2018
Summary
Båsenberga is the name of a village in the parish of Västra Vingåker in Södermanland. The village is situated in the main settled area of the parish and must be assumed to date back to pre-Christian times. The name is well attested in medieval sources. In 1381 it was written as (i) bosnaberghum. The word berg in Båsenberga refers to an elevation near the village. It has previously been suggested that the first element could contain the genitive of an inhabitant designation, OSw. *busknar ‘the people living in the shrubland’. Such an interpretation is possible, but, for various reasons, uncertain. Båsenberga is situated by a watercourse that flows down a hillside, with fairly fast-moving water in its lower course. The author proposes that Båsenberga contains a prehistoric name for this watercourse, meaning something like ‘the forward-flowing (stream or river)’ or ‘the river by the (high) edge’. In Old Swedish, the form of this hydronym could for example have been *Busn(e) or *Bosne.