As has been discussed in previous threads, there aren’t many people named “Hitler” around anymore because the last name is just so loaded with the smell of evil that no one wants it, and most people who had it changed it.
I’m wondering if the same is true of “Quisling” in Norway. Vidkun Quisling was such an odious traitor that his last name became, within weeks, a common noun for anyone who collaborated with Nazis, and eventually a general term for the worst kind of traitor.
So are there people in Norway still called Quisling? Or did they change their names?
The only hits I get when I search for Quisling in a Norwegian online phone directory, are bookstores that sell his biography.
The search at Statistics Norway return the result that there are 3 or less people with the name.
The name “Quisling” was an invented one, and fairly recent. It was a Latinized form of the name of a village (in Denmark, not Norway) that the family had come from a few generations back. Not all members of the extended family had switched to it, so not many people had the name even before the trouble began.
After Quisling’s arrest, trial, and execution, the rest of the family quietly changed their names - except his wife, who kept using the name until her death in 1980.
In the 1900 census there are 22 people with the names kvisling, quisling or qvisling. (I searched on surnames containing isli.) And at least one of those is listed twice.
In 1910 I find 16 called either quisling or qvisling, in two households.
Hereditary surnames wasn’t completely established at the time, but the users of Quisling are in the early adopter category, so these were probably the only Quisling families around. Five of the offspring are male, so probably no more than seven families had to make the choice after the war.
I think we can safely conclude that the “3, 2, 1 or possibly none” answer in the name statistic means zero.
Here’s an exception to the rule: Varg Vikernes, a Norwegian musician/criminal, actually added “Quisling” to his name some years back, as a tribute to ol’ Vidkun.