Players with nationalities you didnt expect based on their name

[Big McLargehuge]

Leo Komarov, although he has both Russian and Finnish citizenship, is actually from Estonia.

How many people could find Estonia on a map?

I woke up with a hangover there once, so I know it's within ferry distance of Helsinki...

 

[notDatsyuk]

I could. I'm from Latvia. Although I live in the UK now.

Ooh! Next door neighbors, iirc.

 

[sr edler]

I knew plenty of Kevin's growing up, all born in the 80s - before Home Alone

In Sweden?

Leo Komarov, although he has both Russian and Finnish citizenship, is actually from Estonia.

How many people could find Estonia on a map?

The city in Estonia where Komarov is from though is like 94% Russian or something. It's right on the border.

 

[HockeyFan100]

Robert Lang, sounds so American

 

[Future GOAT]

Robert Lang, sounds so American

Sounds German to me.

 

[RustyCat]

Doug Smail is from Moose Jaw. Pretty crazy right

 

[Bixby Snyder]

Guess you've never heard of Erik Karlsson. He's from Sweden. You're welcome.

Yes, I have, Erik Karlsson is a very Swedish name just like John Carlson is a very American name. I don't know where you're from but in America, a guy named John Carlson would never raise anyone's suspicion they were a foreigner.

 

[Chadstudsky]

Surely ot was said, not gonna go through all the pages but Douglas Murray for me.

 

[Bixby Snyder]

Sounds German to me.

There are probably more people of German heritage in America than there are in Germany.

 

[Dirty Dan]

Merzlinkins - I thought CBJ only had finnish goalies like villian, kirv, korp
Tavares- thought he was portuguese
Kadri- is lebanese

 

[BagHead]

I never understood how is Niskanen not a Finn.

Ekblad I routinely think of as a Swede.

Lot of Swedes and Finns settled in Minnesota, for some reason, so there are a lot of names like that in the state, along with Polish, Irish and German names. Got a large Hmong and Somali population, too, but that's relatively newer. Anyway, I worked with someone whose name was Juntunen. She was very American, but was aware of her Finnish roots. I'm guessing Niskanen's family has a similar story.

Now then, am I too late for Doug Murray? Someone already get him?

 

[Big McLargehuge]

Robert Lang, sounds so American

There are probably more people of German heritage in America than there are in Germany.

My real name plays better in Germany than it does here...at least over there they'd pronounce it correctly more than 10% of the time. Spell it properly too, thank you Baltimore. There's something like 44 million of German descent in the US, so about half as many as there are in Germany.

Robert is Germanic in origin, but is one of those historically common names through much of Europe. Lang means long, so do what you will with that information.

edit: Some other Robert Langs with Wikipedia pages...a Swiss cyclist, Australian rower, English actor, American physicist, Canadian producer, Austrian football manager, and some Scottish dude. That is one common-ass name.

 

[MarkusKetterer]

Despite his very “middle of nowhere” name, former Soo Greyhound and North Bay Centennial player Oak Hewer was actually from Ottawa

 

[LokiDog]

Anders Bjork is from Wisconsin. Learned that today.

 

[The Hanging Jowl]

 

[DrMartinVanNostrand]

Merzlinkins - I thought CBJ only had finnish goalies like villian, kirv, korp
Tavares- thought he was portuguese
Kadri- is lebanese

I mean, depending on how you personally view these things, Tavares is of Portuguese descent. And I can tell you that we don't come close to pronouncing his name the way it would be pronounced in Portuguese, either.

 

[Sun God Nika]

I thought andreas athanasiou was Sri Lankan.

 

[Sheppy]

Douglas Murray always got me.

 

[Treb]

Robert Lang never stood out as a czech name. Especially since there's a ton of lang that are french canadian

Never seen a Lang. Which part of Canada would they be from?

 

[Mario le Magnifique]

Who knew that Satan was a Russian ??!

 

[notDatsyuk]

Never seen a Lang. Which part of Canada would they be from?

My brother-in-law, a Lang, was from Sudbury.

 

[Wateredgarden]

Always thought Alex Burrows was an Anglo before I heard him speak French.

 

[Streetsamurai]

Never seen a Lang. Which part of Canada would they be from?

Said it.previoisly
.New Brunswick, aka the ass crack of Canada. True that i didnt met any when i lived in MTL

 

[Your old Jofa helmet]

When I was a kid, I always thought that Mike Bossy was French-Canadian because of the way his last name was written and pronounced in the Soviet Union ( with the stress on the last syllable) but he is in fact of Ukrainian origin.

Colaiacovo sounded Finnish to me when I heard it, maybe because it has so many vowels.

With all the history of immigration, you can hardly be surprised by so many non-anglo last names in North America but when Bjork's parents decided to call him Anders and not Andrew, that can throw you off.

Henrik Borgstrom most probably comes from the Aalands finns and there are plenty of Finnish players like that but I still thought of him as Swedish for a while.

My all time favourite name is Hnat Domenicheli. His last name can't be more Italian while his first name is a really old-time classic Ukrainian name and these names appear to have nothing in common when put together. It's like having someone named Hans de la Pena, or like Zbigniew Dubois. Or, Vladimir Guerrero

 

[Sauce12]

Who knew that Satan was a Russian ??!

Well, he is not.