Players with nationalities you didnt expect based on their name

[snipes]

Lucas Raymond and Alexander Holtz don’t sound like Swedish names.

Slater Koekkoek is another one you don’t expect to be Canadian.

 

[Phil McKraken]

Always thought Satan was from hell.

My dream has always been to see him marry a Hispanic lady and name his son Jesus. Jesus Satan.

 

[snipes]

The first time you watched a Finland game and heard the name Brad Lambert, you weren't a little bit surprised?

Brad Lambertalainen

 

[JianYang]

I'll add Douglas Murray from Sweden aka crankshaft.

 

[Raptoronto]

Douglas Murray being a proud Swede was a big surprise to me.

 

[rubikscube]

Yamamoto

 

[ShonSaunders]

Arthur Kaliyev

 

[Bure80]

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

Took me a while to find out Rittich was Czech.

Both are German surnames. Not that rare in Sudetenland, Bohemian or Moravia.

 

[CraigBillington]

So there's a lot to dissect here:
- nationalities is not racism
- nobody is making racist/ethnic/nationalistic remarks disparaging a group of people (i.e. "no wonder that player sucks. He's [insert nationality]")
- it's a discussion of dialect and language, based on names. Again, not a discussion of race (i.e. "Wow, he doesn't LOOK [insert race]")

That being said, I was beaten to the punch on my nomination. I was going to say Robyn Regehr.

Maybe learning new things about other nationalities or races or family histories is actually a bad thing? I mean, I frown on every opportunity to learn something new about someone's background.

Further to what you said, a bunch of these have to do with their parents, most of which were overseas because of their hockey careers.
Some, like the Regehrs, were born in obscure hockey countries (Robyn also lived in Indonesia where Richie was born) because their parents were Christian missionaries or because their parents were in the armed forces, like Rod Langway who is from Taiwan

 

[Bubbles]

Both are German surnames. Not that rare in Sudetenland, Bohemian or Moravia.

Your namesake, Pavel Bure, is also an interesting one.

His relatives from Switzerland immigrated to Russia a long time ago.

 

[CraigBillington]

Both are German surnames. Not that rare in Sudetenland, Bohemian or Moravia.

Took me a long time to realize that Bohemia was even Czech, and not Germany

 

[danpantz]

Anders Bjork is from Wisconsin

 

[Neuf]

 

[DudeWhereIsMakar]

Canada is still a new country so I expect to see a bunch of new names coming from hockey players as people continue to move here. Same with hockey players who move from North America like Paul Stastny holding three passports as he comes from a Slovakian background, born in Canada and plays for Team USA.

Sasha Barkov comes off as Russian but is Finnish.

Another is Brandon Saad sounding Syrian.

 

[Taswell]

Didn't expect Wahlstrom to be from Bahhston

 

[Erikfromfin]

Matt Finn is not a Finn

 

[Nikolajs Sillers]

Frk this thread. Still don't know where from he is.

 

[Hennessy]

I'll add Douglas Murray from Sweden aka crankshaft.

Another Sharks defenseman you'd not assume was Swedish - Tim Heed.

Also, Jacob de la Rose. Swedish.

 

[Hank Plank]

Yamamoto

Is Japanese/Hawaiian not a surprise to me.

 

[barriers]

Olaf Kolzig, pride of Africa

 

[Macbanan]

I'm often not surprised when a player happens to be American of Canadian. Especially not American, because they are made up from immigrants, all types of names are pretty well represented there. Sure Saad sounds Syrian but I would be more surprised if an NHL player was actually from Syria and not from the US. There's basically only 10+ countries or so that produces NHL players.

Any time I stumble across NHL player with a Swedish sounding name like Lindros or Ekblad that I have never heard of, I suspect that's because he's from North America or Finland.

Non traditional hockey names like Yamamoto, Zibanejad and Ho-Sang I'd assume are from places with a lot of immigrants from places where those names are common. Sweden's a good guess for Zibanejad (Is it Persian or Kurdish?) and for Yamamoto and Ho-sang I'd just guess either Candada or the US.

 

[Wanderson]

Most of the names dropped in the threads and not surprising. In my opinion, the most surprising part is that you guys follow the NHL daily but you don’t bother to do any research at all

 

[Bondurant]

Like just now I learned TBL 3rd string goalie Christopher Gibson... Finnish!

also wasnt aware Alex Nedelkjovic.... American!

I am taking a wild guess that a Finn with an Anglo name is more rare than American with a Serbo-Croatian name.

 

[Lexus]

I was surprised to find out Zarley Zalapski was from Earth.

 

[DRW204]

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