Alexander Skarsgård, Peter Sarsgaard, or Stellan Skarsgård? A -Gaard Quiz.

Alexander Skarsgård, Peter Sarsgaard, or Stellan Skarsgård? Take Our -Gård Quiz.

Alexander Skarsgård, Peter Sarsgaard, or Stellan Skarsgård? Take Our -Gård Quiz.

Brow Beat has moved! You can find new stories here.
Brow Beat
Slate's Culture Blog
Aug. 12 2015 8:02 AM

QUIZ: Which -Gård Is This?

The -Gaardians of the Galaxy, the Owls of Ga-Who?
From left to right: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Photo illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker. Photos by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters,Larry Busacca/Getty Images,Tony Gentile/Reuters.

Stellan Skarsgård. Peter Sarsgaard. Alexander Skarsgård. Gustaf Skarsgård. Hollywood is overrun with -gårds, especially of the Sars- and Skars- varieties. But with so many -gårds, how do you remember which is which? To help you puzzle through it, we’ve made this quiz.

But first, for those curious about why there are so many -gårds in the first place, a little bit of history. In the mutually intelligible languages of Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian, gård means farm, land, or yard, and it’s a common suffix for family names. Originally, all the Scandinavian languages used aa to represent the long A sound, but in recent centuries they’ve switched to å. (Since å is preferred over aa in modern Scandinavia, we are using -gård as a catchall term for all -gårds and -gaards for the purpose of this quiz.)

Advertisement

Of course, that history won’t help you sort out the Skarsgårds from the Sarsgaards. For that we have this quiz. Åre you ready?

Loading Quiz ...

Forrest Wickman is Slate’s culture editor.

L.V. Anderson is a former Slate associate editor.